Key facts
- Gunmen fired on an ambulance after a suicide bombing in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan.
- The suicide bombing killed at least 12 people and wounded about 35 others.
- A rescue worker was killed and two others wounded when gunmen targeted the ambulance.
- The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
- Most of those killed and wounded in the bombing were security personnel and passersby.
- The blast destroyed a sprawling police checkpoint.
Gunmen opened fire on an ambulance attending the scene of a suicide bomb attack at a roadside police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan that killed at least 12 people and wounded about 35 others, officials said. The attack involving an explosives-laden vehicle occurred in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Local police chief Safdar Baloch said most of those killed and wounded were security personnel and passersby. The blast destroyed the sprawling checkpoint. Gunmen then fired on an ambulance as emergency crews transported victims to a nearby hospital, killing a rescue worker and wounding two others. Two women and a child were among those killed in the suicide bombing. The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack. Pakistan has experienced a surge in militant violence in recent years, much of it claimed by the TTP and the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army. The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan's Taliban. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack. Zardari described the targeting of civilians and law enforcement personnel as "highly condemnable" and called for intensified action against the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused Afghanistan's Taliban government of allowing TTP members to operate from Afghan territory. Saturday's bombing came two days after fighting along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border killed at least 13 Afghan Taliban fighters, according to Pakistan's government. The renewed hostilities threaten mediation efforts by China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia aimed at securing lasting peace between the neighboring countries. Dera Ismail Khan is near South Waziristan, a former militant stronghold. In December 2023, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the main gate of a police station in Dera Ismail Khan, killing at least 23 security personnel.