38 civilians killed in attack on passenger cars in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | World news

At least 38 people were killed and 29 injured after gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles in a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan, Reuters reported.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry confirmed the attack, saying the attackers attacked commercial vehicles in convoy coming from Parachinar in Kurram.

Chaudhry said a woman and a child were among those killed in the attack, adding that the death toll was likely to rise.

“There were two convoys of passenger vehicles, one was carrying passengers from Peshawar to Parachinar and the other from Parachinar to Peshawar when armed men opened fire on them,” local Parachinar resident Ziarat Hussain told Reuters by phone.

The local added that his relatives were traveling in a convoy from Peshawar. No group has yet taken responsibility for the incident.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari strongly condemned the attack on passenger vehicles. “The attack on innocent passengers is a cowardly and inhumane act,” he wrote in a post on X.

Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari also condemned the attack, stating that those involved in the incident must be held accountable.

“Establishing law and order is the government’s primary responsibility, civilian lives must be protected,” his party’s media unit said in a post on Page X.

According to Reuters, there have been decades of tensions between armed Shiites and Sunnis over a land dispute in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

in August 23 people died after they were forced from their vehicles and shot dead by gunmen in southwestern Pakistan.

Militants stopped several buses, trucks and delivery vehicles and shot dead people after checking their ethnicity in Musakhail district of Balochistan.

Separatists in Balochistan have frequently killed workers and others from the eastern Punjab region as part of a campaign to force them out of the province.

(Input from Reuters)