ISLAMABAD – In the wake of a devastating suicide bombing outside an Islamabad district court, Pakistani authorities launched an investigation on Wednesday, seeking answers after the tragic event claimed 12 lives. This incident highlights the persistent challenges the government faces as it grapples with militant violence, border conflicts, and a tenuous ceasefire with Afghanistan.

The bombing, which occurred in a court situated on the outskirts of the capital near a residential area, has raised serious concerns. Despite numerous security operations aimed at dismantling militant networks, the attackers demonstrated their capability to execute a significant attack in Islamabad, a city previously regarded as relatively safe amid rising militant activities elsewhere in the country.

While Islamabad has largely been shielded from the spike in militant attacks seen in recent years, Tuesday’s bombing shattered this perception, prompting a swift and comprehensive investigation. Forensic experts and police officers meticulously sifted through the debris at the blast site on Wednesday, with the area cordoned off to protect crucial evidence.

Meanwhile, the city’s hospital corridors echoed with the sorrow of grieving families as they gathered to receive the bodies of their loved ones lost in the attack. As the investigation continues, it is of some comfort that most of the 27 individuals injured in the bombing have been discharged after receiving medical treatment, returning to the embrace of their families.

Most of the 27 people wounded in the bombing had been released home after treatment.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi alleged in the immediate aftermath of the bombing on Tuesday that the attack was “carried out by Indian-backed elements and Afghan Taliban proxies” linked to the Pakistani Taliban, though he said authorities were “looking into all aspects” of the explosion.

He offered no evidence for his claim and New Delhi rejected it as baseless.

Naqvi blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, for the attack.

The TTP denied involvement while a breakaway faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility only to have one of its commanders later contradict that claim.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar split from the TTP after its leader was killed in Afghanistan in 2022; some members have since rejoined the TTP while others remain independent, underscoring divisions within Pakistan’s militant networks.

The attack drew widespread condemnation from the international community.

Attack on a military-run college

The Islamabad bombing came a day after four militants targeted an army-run college for cadets in the northwestern city of Wana. The police said four of the attackers — including a suicide car bomber — were killed and more than 600 people, including 525 cadets, were safely rescued during the overnight assault.

A suicide bomber had rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the college gate. Troops quickly fanned out across the campus to prevent the attackers from reaching the buildings where cadets and staff had taken shelter.

Footage aired on Pakistani news channels Wednesday showed soldiers evacuating cadets using wooden ladders and breaking windows to get inside the dormitories. The evacuees were later transported to safety in armored vehicles, officials said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the attackers appeared to be attempting a repeat of the 2014 Peshawar school massacre — the deadliest assault on a school in the country — when a breakaway TTP faction killed 154 people, mostly children, at an army-run school in Peshawar.

Escalation with Afghanistan

Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have risen since last month, when Kabul accused Islamabad of carrying out drone strikes on Oct. 9 that killed several people in the Afghan capital.

The strikes sparked cross-border clashes that left dozens of soldiers, civilians, and militants dead before Qatar brokered a cease-fire on Oct. 19. Two rounds of follow-up peace talks in Istanbul ended without progress after Kabul refused to provide written assurances that militants would not use Afghan soil to stage attacks in Pakistan.

The TTP, which is allied with but separate from the Afghan Taliban, has been emboldened since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Many TTP fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan and have staged attacks in Pakistan from across the border.

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Associated Press writers Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story