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Pakistan suicide bombing kills 'at least 22' in Mardan | |
(35 minutes later) | |
A suspected suicide attack at a government office in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 22 people, police say. | |
The bomb went off outside the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) office in the town of Mardan. | |
A splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban said it carried out the attack, which left more than 30 others wounded. | |
The attack is one of the deadliest since last December's massacre of 150 pupils and teachers in Peshawar. | |
The bomber in Mardan reportedly arrived on a motorbike and blew himself up when stopped by a security guard outside the Nadra building. | |
The office is usually crowded with people lining up to get ID cards. | |
Police put the death toll at 22 so far. Most of the dead and wounded are civilians, BBC correspondents say. | |
The Bach Khan Medical complex has received at least 16 dead bodies and dozens of injured people, Reuters reports. | The Bach Khan Medical complex has received at least 16 dead bodies and dozens of injured people, Reuters reports. |
If the attacker had not been stopped by a security guard at the office's gate, the death toll would be significantly higher, Mardan police Deputy Inspector General Saeed Wazie told BBC Urdu's Adil Shahzeb. | |
He said up to 12 kilograms of explosive material may have been used in the blast. | |
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which split from the Pakistani Taliban in 2014, said it carried out the attack on what it called the "heathen Pakistan state". | |
The bombing is one of the deadliest since a security crackdown following the Peshawar school massacre a year ago that saw 150 people killed by the Pakistani Taliban. | |
Offensives against insurgents have reduced major militant attacks from dozens every month in 2014 to no more than one or two a month this year. | Offensives against insurgents have reduced major militant attacks from dozens every month in 2014 to no more than one or two a month this year. |
Mardan is 30 miles (50km) north-west of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pahktunkhwa province. | |