The military reports that nine soldiers were killed and five others were wounded in a suicide assault by the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on a security forces convoy in Pakistan’s volatile northwest.
Inter-Services Public Relations, the military’s media arm, said that a bomber riding a bicycle attacked the convoy on Thursday in the Bannu region of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to the statement, nine troops were killed and five were injured when a bomber on a motorbike slammed into a vehicle in the convoy.
Law enforcement officials responded quickly, sealing off the area around the bomb site. It said that a large-scale search effort had been initiated to find and apprehend those responsible for the explosion.
Anwaarul Haq Kakar, the interim prime minister, criticised the assault on social networking site X. He described the violence as “utterly reprehensible” and expressed sympathy for the victims’ loved ones.
There has been a spate of terrorist attacks in Pakistan recently, all of which have been coordinated by the banned terrorist group.
In 2007, many militant groups came together to form the TTP.
In the volatile Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region last month, TTP terrorists ambushed a police roadblock, killing two officers and wounding as many more.
On January 30, a suicide bomber from the Pakistani Taliban attacked a mosque in the city of Peshawar, killing 101 people and wounding over 200 more.
Three TTP rebels and four others, including two police constables, were slain in February when they assaulted the office of the Karachi Police chief in Pakistan’s most populated metropolis.
The group, which is said to have ties to Al Qaeda, has been held responsible for a number of violent attacks throughout Pakistan, including a 2009 assault on army headquarters, attacks on military outposts, and the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in 2008.
More than 130 children were murdered in an assault on Peshawar’s Army Public School in 2014. The attack was planned and carried out by the TTP.
 on a security forces convoy in Pakistan's volatile northwest.Inter-Services Public Relations, the military's media arm, said that a bomber riding a bicycle attacked the convoy on Thursday in the Bannu region of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.){kind=link}