The device exploded after being attached to a truck carrying the workers to a construction project in Waziristan, near the Afghan border.

“They were working at an army post that is under construction … an IED exploded under a vehicle carrying the labourers,” deputy commissioner of North Waziristan, Rehan Khattak said.

‘MILITANCY IN PAKISTAN’

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the Afghan Taliban surged back to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021.

The militant assaults have been focused in regions abutting Afghanistan, and Islamabad alleges some are being planned on Afghan soil — a charge Kabul denies.

Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has waged a growing campaign against security officials, including police officers.

In January, a suicide bomber linked to Pakistan’s Taliban blew himself up in a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing more than 80 officers.

Last month, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 54 people, including 23 children, at a political party gathering ahead of elections due later this year.

Around 400 members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) party — a key government coalition partner led by a firebrand cleric — had gathered for a convention when a bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives and ball bearings near the front stage.

Pakistan was once plagued by almost daily bombings, but a major military clearance operation in the former tribal areas starting in 2014 largely restored order.

The seven remote districts that border Afghanistan, of which North Waziristan is one, were later brought under the control of Pakistani authorities after the passage of legislation in 2018.

Analysts say militants in the former tribal areas have become emboldened since the return of Taliban in Afghanistan

Updated: 20 Aug 2023, 12:09 PM IST