Two suicide bombers dressed in burqas struck a crowd of displaced people collecting aid handouts, killing at least 32 and wounding more than 50 on Saturday at a camp in northwest Pakistan.
The bombers struck minutes apart in the Kacha Pukha camp on the outskirts of the garrison city of Kohat, a registration centre for people fleeing Taliban violence and Pakistani army operations close to the Afghan border.
The attacks underscored the grave threat still posed by extremists despite stepped up Pakistani offensives and a significant increase in U.S. drone attacks targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked commanders in the nearby tribal belt.
"The toll in the two suicide attacks is 32 dead and more than 50 wounded," local police chief Dilawar Khan Bangash told AFP by telephone from the scene.
He said the bombers walked into the crowd wearing burqas, the loose fitting head-to-toe outfit that obscures the face and worn by conservative Muslim women in parts of northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Body parts of the bombers were recovered and most of the victims were members of the Mani Khel and Baramad Khel tribes who had gathered for registration after fleeing fighting in their home district of Orakzai, he said.
"The two tribes raised a lashkar (tribal militia) to fight Taliban in Orakzai," he said adding that security forces suffered no casualties
Bangash said the first bomber detonated his explosives while displaced people gathered to receive relief items. A few minutes later the second bomber blew himself up in the middle of the gathering crowd.
Internal displacement
Northwest Pakistan has suffered a major internal displacement of people as a result of Taliban violence and a series of military offensives concentrated on flushing out the armed Islamists from parts of the northwest and tribal belt.
The United Nations says 1.3 million people are currently displaced.
Pakistan’s latest military offensive and ongoing extremist violence have displaced at least 210,000 people from the tribal districts of Orakzai and Kurram, most of whom have registered in Kohat and Hangu towns.
Northwest Pakistan suffers from chronic insecurity largely connected to the neighboring semi-autonomous tribal belt, which Washington calls the most dangerous place on Earth and a global headquarters of al-Qaeda.
A campaign of attacks
A campaign of suicide and bomb attacks have killed more than 3,200 people in less than three years across the nuclear-armed country of 167 million, blamed on al-Qaeda, Taliban and other extremist Islamist groups.
On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the main hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing 10 people, in what police said was an apparent sectarian attack linked to the shooting of a Shiite banker.
Pakistan’s military has carried out a series of crackdowns against homegrown al-Qaeda-backed Taliban fighters seeking to topple the U.S.-backed government.
Militants have managed to bounce back despite several army offensives, staging bombings that have raised questions about stability in Pakistan, a crucial ally in Washington’s bid to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.
Last year, a total of 3.1 million people were displaced from their homes in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border.
Nearly two million people have returned home, but uncertainty continues in the wake of ongoing clashes between troops and the Taliban.