Almost 40 people have been killed and dozens injured this Thursday in an attack by unidentified gunmen against several passenger vehicles in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pashtunjuánear the border with Afghanistan, as confirmed by both Pakistani police and local authorities. No group has claimed responsibility.
A spokesman for the security forces of that country has indicated in statements to the newspaper Dawn that at least 38 people have died in the attack, carried out near Kurram. The authorities do not rule out that the number of victims will increase in the coming hours.
“There were two passenger vehicles: one covered the route between Peshawar and Parachinar, and another between Parachinar and Peshawar, where a group of armed men opened fire,” underlines a local resident in telephone statements to the Reuters agency. Several of his relatives were traveling to Peshawar in the convoy.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the attack and offered his condolences to the families of the victims. “Attacking innocent passengers is a cowardly and inhuman act,” he said, according to statements published by his party on social networks.
The attack occurs in the midst of an increase in terrorist attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Balochistan (both in West Pakistan). Kurram has also been the scene in recent months of several inter-community clashes that have left dozens of victims.
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