Suicide bombers and militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades take part in attack

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

A Taliban assault on a Pakistani army post has left 35 people dead including 12 attackers, government officials said.

The raid on the army post in Serai Naurang town, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province began before dawn and lasted for several hours, said senior police officer Arif Khan Wazir. The militants were armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, he said.

Nine soldiers and four members of the frontier constabulary, a force that polices parts of north-western Pakistan, were killed in the fighting along with 10 civilians who lived nearby.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the Associated Press. He said four suicide bombers were involved, and that the attack was retaliation for the recent deaths of two Taliban commanders in US drone strikes.

A police official said he saw the bodies of three attackers with their suicide vests intact. Their features suggested they belonged to a group of Uzbek militants allied with the Taliban, he said. The civilians were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside their house, the police said.

The raid followed a suicide bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque elsewhere in the north-west on Friday that killed 24 people. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed responsibility.

The mosque attack took place in Hangu town, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The town has experienced previous clashes between the Sunni and Shia communities that live there.

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 Shias were killed in attacks in Pakistan in 2012.