Are Suicide Bombings Back in Town?

ISLAMABAD: Five people have been killed and another 10 have been severely injured in suicide attack on a peace committee members In Dera Ismail Khann on Friday night, local police officials told media.

He said that seven ambulances, a fire vehicle and a disaster vehicle reached the site of the incident soon after it was reported, adding that a rescue operation was still under way.

Dera Ismail Khan District Police Officer (DPO) Sajjad Ahmed Sahibzada said the attack occurred at the residence of peace committee leader Noor Alam Mehsud, where a wedding ceremony was being held.

“The explosion was a suicide blast. It is premature to say anything about the casualties,” DPO Sahibzada said. He said that an emergency had been imposed at the District Headquarter Hospital.

The suicide bombings which had halted following the destruction suicide training centers in North and South Waziristan in the military operations in 2017 and 2018, have resurfaced since the initial month of last year. There were several suicide bombing in 2025.

Khyber pakhtunkhwa has been the worst affected areas by the TTP-led violence which has started rise again after Afghan Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021 following American military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Second worst affected area is Balochistan which witnessed four suicide attacks in 2023, “Tragically, 14 people lost their lives, and 27 others were injured in these attacks. Additionally, one reported suicide attack occurred in Sindh, resulting in the deaths of five individuals and injuring 18 others” said the report.
Security experts are apprehensive that this could be the start of a larger wave of suicide attacks, kind of repeat of wave that Pakistan society witnessed between 2007-2011. The wave of suicide bombings that started in Pakistan in the wake of July 2007 military operation against militants sheltered in Islamabad’s Lal Masjid was clearly aimed at destabilizing the country. This wave picked up pace in terms of numbers of attacks in the period between 2007-2011. Several media and official sources had then pointed out that multiple groups were engaged in suicide blasts. Even the Pakistani Taliban was not a monolithic entity and it comprised several different groups, which were then being targeted in military operations mainly in erstwhile FATA. Some say that this wave was intended to weaken the resolve of Pakistani state and military leaders so that they retreat from the advance
stage of military operations against tribal militants in Pakistani tribal areas.  Some western analysts have also described suicide bombings as a strategic tool of the militants group employed to extract concessions from democratic government. According to one account, “law enforcement investigations indicate that suicide bombings is the work of multiple militant and terrorist outfits like the local Taliban, Al Qaeda, and groups affiliated with Al Qaeda such as Jamiat al- Furqan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The evidence they have collected shows that Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups in Pakistan have used suicide terrorism to obtain specific strategic goals against the government.