Suicide bombers kill at least 13 in attacks on Christian colony and court in Pakistan

Islamist terrorist group linked to Isis claims responsibility for atrocities

A grenade was thrown at the district court before explosives were detonated, a government spokesman said (Getty)

At least 13 people have been killed in a series of militant attacks in Pakistan that saw suicide bombers target a Christian neighbourhood and another blast hit a district court.

In the city of Peshawar, four gunmen wearing suicide vests entered a Christian colony early on Friday morning, with one entering a church but finding no one inside.

Police said the men killed at least one victim but were quickly repelled by security forces and died in the ensuing gun battle.


 Pakistani soldiers escort ambulances carrying the bodies of suicide bombers following one of the attacks 
 (Getty)

Three police officers and two civilian guards were wounded in the attack, near where extremists massacred 134 children at a school in 2014.

Hours later, a huge blast rocked a district court in the city of Mardan, killing 12 people and wounding 54 others, including lawyers, police officers and passers-by.

A suicide bomber threw a grenade at the district court before detonating his explosives, according to government spokesman Mushtaq Ghani.

The president of the Mardan Bar Association, Amir Hussain, told reporters he was in a neighbouring room when the blast happened.

“There was dust everywhere, and people were crying [out] loud with pain,” he said.

A local police official, Ijaz Ahmed Khan, said the attacker intended to target a gathering of lawyers but was thwarted by officers who were then killed in the blast.


 A Pakistani security official inspects the site of a suicide bomb explosion that targeted Mardan court 
 (EPA)

Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction, claimed responsibility for both attacks.

The group, whose name translates as The Party of Freedom Fighters, has carried out a string of atrocities including a bombing that killed more than 70 people during Easter celebrations at a park in Lahore.

Last month, a bomb blast targeting lawyers and journalists gathering outside a hospital in the city of Quetta killed 70 more victims.

Both Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Isis issued competing claims of responsibility for the attack amid confusion over whether militants had pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State.

The Pakistani army said it had prevented Isis from establishing a network in the country, with the arrest of more than 300 alleged sympathisers and members in recent years, including fighters from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a statement on Thursday the military also claimed it had cleared the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Friday’s attacks took place.

Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani Prime Minister, condemned both atrocities saying: “These cowardly attacks cannot shatter our unflinching resolve in our war against terrorism.”

It was the latest in a series of attacks targeting lawyers, security forces, politicians and religious minorities in predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

Human Rights Watch said the government has failed to take adequate steps to prevent and respond to massacres targeting Christians and Shia and Ahmadi Muslims.

In March 2015, suicide bombers belonging to Tehrik-i-Taliban targeted two churches in a Christian district of Lahore and the previous year a woman and two children were killed in riots over an allegedly blasphemous Facebook post.

Additional reporting by AP