The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, expressed this Friday his "strong" rejection of the suicide car bomb attack carried out against a police building located next to a mosque in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the north of the country and near the border with Afghanistan, an attack that has caused more than twenty fatalities.
The spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, emphasized that Guterres "conveys his deep condolences" to the relatives of the victims and insisted that "attacks against civilians and places of worship are unacceptable."
In this regard, he demanded that the material and intellectual authors of the attack appear before justice and reiterated the "solidarity" of the United Nations with the Government and the people of Pakistan "in their efforts to confront terrorism and violent extremism."
According to the latest balance provided by Pakistani authorities, the attack, recorded in the city of Kohat, has left at least 21 dead, including 15 police officers, as well as nearly 80 injured. Security forces have attributed the action to the armed group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban.
The Inspector General of Police of the province, Zulfiqar Hamid, explained that the suicide attacker detonated the explosives near the main entrance of a security forces building, adjacent to a mosque, after which several armed men attempted to storm the complex, triggering an intense exchange of gunfire.
The border area with Afghanistan has been plagued for years by a situation of great instability, marked in particular by the actions of the Pakistani Taliban. Islamabad has repeatedly accused India and the Afghan Taliban of providing support to this organization, something that both New Delhi and Kabul have repeatedly denied.