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Fourteen people were killed on August 2 (local time) in a suicide bombing targeting the vicinity of an anti-militant rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, northwestern Pakistan / Courtesy of Xinhua, Yonhap News

At least 14 people were killed when a rally protesting militant violence in northwestern Pakistan was struck by a suicide bombing, with most of the victims being civilians and police officers.

According to AP and Al Jazeera on the 3rd (local time), the attack occurred the previous evening in Kabal, a small town in the Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Hundreds of residents had gathered at an intersection in front of a police station, demanding the government respond to a recent resurgence in militant attacks. They complained that authorities were cracking down only on peaceful residents even as militants openly operated in the surrounding mountains and posted videos of their activities on social media. Pakistani daily Dawn reported that one speaker said, "We have endured years of bloodshed," adding, "We don't want another generation of widows and orphans."

The blast struck the crowd as the last speaker was addressing them. Umar Khan, head of Swat district police, said the explosion occurred after police stopped a man at the police station's main entrance and tried to search him, at which point he detonated the explosives. At least 14 people were killed and at least 24 more were injured in the attack. The injured were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Saidu Sharif, with some in critical condition.

Police cordoned off the site and launched an investigation. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attack in a statement, offering condolences to the bereaved and wishing the injured a swift recovery. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also issued statements condemning the attack and ordered that the injured receive the best possible care. President Zardari said, "The terrorists will never succeed in their wicked attempt to undermine peace, national unity, and the state's governing authority."

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. AP reported that suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which has waged an armed campaign against the Pakistani government since 2007 seeking to impose its own rule. While a separate organization from the Taliban governing Afghanistan, the TTP maintains solidarity with it.

Militant attacks have surged sharply in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province recently. On the 30th of last month, a checkpoint in the same province was struck by an explosive-laden drone attack that killed 11 police officers, and on the 24th, a car bomb attack killed 27 soldiers. The TTP claimed responsibility for the car bombing. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) said terrorism-related deaths in the province totaled 154 last month, more than double the figure for June.

The Swat Valley, where this latest attack occurred, was once a TTP stronghold. The group seized control of the region starting in 2007, strictly enforcing its interpretation of Islamic law (sharia), before being pushed out by a large-scale Pakistani military operation in 2009. It was also in the Swat Valley that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai was shot by Taliban militants in 2012, when she was a teenager.

The TTP has continued its activities since then. Much of its leadership and many of its fighters established hideouts in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook power there in 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of sheltering militants who plan cross-border attacks, though Kabul denies this. Tensions between the two countries have deepened this year as Pakistan has carried out airstrikes on Afghan territory, which Kabul and the UN say have killed dozens of civilians.

                                                                                                             Jeong Ri-na