A suicide bomber struck outside the gates of a district court in Islamabad on Tuesday, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people, Pakistan's interior minister said, the latest in an uptick in violence across the country.
Witnesses described scenes of mayhem in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, which also wounded 27 people. The blast was heard for miles away and came at a busy time of day when the area outside the court is typically crowded with hundreds of visitors attending court hearings.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group, claimed responsibility for the attack. But shortly after, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander from the group, sent WhatsApp messages insisting they had not made any such claim.
His group quit the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, after the head of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was killed in a blast in Afghanistan in 2022. Though some members recently rejoined TTP, others keep their distance, indicating continuing differences among the insurgents.




More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war so far, Gaza health officials said Saturday, as both sides completed the latest exchange of bodies under the terms of the tenuous ceasefire.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, is reportedly preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration to review, according to new allegations from a whistleblower shared with House Democrats.
Cancer continues to be one of the world's top causes of death, due in part to delayed discovery of the disease. But according to a recently released study, a simple blood test may be able to identify a variety of cancers in their early stages.
The UN humanitarian relief chief, Tom Fletcher, has sounded the alarm over rising violence in the occupied West Bank, where attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and their property continue to escalate.
A deadly listeria outbreak connected to prepared pasta meals sold at grocery chains nationwide is worsening, federal health officials say.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that the Higher Planning Council will approve the construction of 1,973 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank during its next session.






























