At least 24 people, including women and children, were killed in a series of explosions in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday, sparking widespread calls for an investigation.
The blasts occurred in the remote Tirah Valley. Police initially said the explosions were caused by bomb-making material stored at a Pakistan Taliban (TTP) compound, killing both fighters and civilians.
However, opposition leaders and local officials alleged that Pakistani warplanes carried out overnight air raids as part of a counterterrorism operation targeting militants in the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan.
No official statement has yet been issued by the government or the military.
Local police officer Zafar Khan told the Associated Press that 10 civilians — including women and children — were among the dead, along with at least 14 TTP fighters, two of them senior commanders.
The outlawed TTP, separate from but ideologically linked to the Afghan Taliban, has waged an armed insurgency against the Pakistani state since 2007. Security forces frequently conduct operations against the group in Khyber, Bajaur and other tribal districts.
‘Attack on civilians’
Iqbal Afridi, an opposition lawmaker representing Tirah in Pakistan’s National Assembly, told AFP that Pakistani forces carried out the air strikes. Another provincial legislator, Sohail Khan Afridi, echoed the claim during a session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, saying: “This assault by the security forces is nothing less than an attack on unarmed civilians.”
Both leaders are members of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, which currently governs the province.
Provincial assembly speaker Babar Saleem Swati also accused the military of aerial bombardment, saying civilians were killed and homes destroyed. Writing on X, he warned the bloodshed would have “negative consequences for the future of the country,” and urged federal and provincial authorities to launch a transparent inquiry and compensate affected families.
Human rights concerns
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed alarm at the reported deaths.
“We are deeply shocked to learn that children and civilians were killed in the attack,” the rights body said in a statement. “We demand that the authorities conduct an immediate and impartial inquiry and hold those responsible to account. The state is constitutionally bound to protect the right to life of all civilians, which it has repeatedly failed to do.”
