ISLAMABAD (Realist English). A suicide bombing outside a judicial complex in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad has killed at least 12 people and injured more than two dozen, officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters that the attacker tried to enter the court premises around noon — a busy time for hearings — but detonated his explosives near a police van after being stopped by security personnel.
“This is not just another bombing. It happened in Islamabad,” Naqvi said, underscoring the rarity of such attacks in the heavily guarded capital, which has largely been spared from the wave of violence affecting Pakistan’s western frontier with Afghanistan.
No group has claimed responsibility, and Naqvi refrained from naming suspects. However, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif suggested that the Taliban government in Kabul was behind the assault.
“We are in a state of war,” Asif wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The rulers of Kabul can stop terrorism in Pakistan, but bringing this war to Islamabad is a message — and, God willing, Pakistan has the full strength to respond.”
The explosion comes amid escalating tensions between Pakistan and its neighbors, Afghanistan and India, both of which Islamabad accuses of supporting militants on its territory. Kabul and New Delhi have denied the allegations, accusing Pakistan in turn of exploiting terrorism claims to justify regional destabilization.
The bombing followed the collapse of a third round of peace talks between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban representatives in Istanbul last week. The negotiations, mediated by Qatar and Turkey, broke down after Pakistan launched a series of air and drone strikes inside Afghanistan, including near Kabul. The Taliban retaliated with cross-border attacks, killing dozens of civilians and soldiers before a temporary ceasefire was reached.
According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, militant attacks by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch separatist groups have killed over 1,600 people — civilians and security personnel — so far this year, the country’s highest death toll in a decade.
The Islamabad bombing came just one day after a car explosion in New Delhi, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed on unnamed “conspirators.” India and Pakistan fought a brief but intense military confrontation in May after New Delhi accused Islamabad of orchestrating a massacre in Kashmir — an allegation Pakistan has denied.
