Eleven people were killed in a suicide car bombing at a security post in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan, officials confirmed Wednesday.
The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu district.
A breakaway faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Tuesday’s attack happened in Bannu while the country’s political and military leadership were meeting in Islamabad to discuss ways to respond to the surge in militant violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups, including the Baluchistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Baluchistan province.
The order came following a Nov. 9 suicide attack by the group at a train station that killed 26 people in Quetta, the capital of the province.