At least 12 people were killed and 27 others injured Tuesday when a suicide bombing rocked the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the interior minister confirmed.
The blast took place outside the district court buildings in a residential area at 12:39 p.m. (7:39 a.m. GMT). The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.
"So far, 12 people have been martyred and around 27 are wounded," Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters at the scene of the incident.
Witnesses told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the blast sent people fleeing and damaged vehicles in the area.
"As I parked my car and entered the complex... I heard a loud bang at the gate," lawyer Rustam Malik said after the blast.
"It was complete chaos, lawyers and people were running inside the complex. I saw two dead bodies lying on the gate and several cars were on fire," he added.
Mohammed Shahzad Butt, another lawyer, said: "It was a massive blast. Everyone started running inside out of panic. I have seen at least five dead bodies lying at the front gate," he told AFP.
Police and paramilitary troops cordoned off the area, which houses several government offices, including the administrative commissioner and deputy commissioner.
The bombing follows the Indian capital Delhi being hit by a car explosion Monday, which killed at least eight people.
The prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, earlier accused the TTP and separatists from the country's Balochistan region, both of whom have carried out attacks mostly on security forces.
Islamabad has largely been spared major terrorist violence in recent years, with the last suicide attack occurring in December 2022.
But the country is facing a resurgence of attacks, which officials attribute mainly to armed groups allegedly sheltered on Afghan soil.
The bombing came as Pakistani security forces battled militants who had holed up in a school in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Wana district, near the Afghan border.
Recent attacks prompted a bloody clash between Pakistan and Afghanistan in October, their worst fighting across their border in years.
More than 70 people were killed on both sides, including about 50 Afghan civilians, according to the United Nations.
The two countries agreed to a fragile cease-fire, but failed to finalise its details during several rounds of negotiations that collapsed last week. Each side blamed the other for the impasse.
Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said the Islamabad suicide attack should be seen as "a wake-up call."
"In this environment, it would be futile to hold out greater hope for successful negotiations with the rulers of Kabul," he wrote on X.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of sheltering the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups that launch attacks across a long, porous border, which the Afghan government denies.
