At least 16 people were killed and more than 50 wounded when an explosives-laden vehicle was driven into a police compound in Kohat district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province during Friday congregational prayers, Anadolu Agency reported on September 18. Police identified the dead as 11 civilians and five police officers.

The bombing is the second mass-casualty attack on a police facility in the province within weeks, adding to pressure on Pakistani authorities struggling to contain an insurgency along the Afghan border that has intensified since Islamabad and Kabul began trading fire earlier this year.

A senior police official said the vehicle rammed the gate of the Old Police Lines before detonating, according to local broadcaster Geo News. The blast left a crater outside a mosque inside the compound and damaged the building, a police spokesperson said. Worshippers were gathered for weekly prayers at the time.

Tahir Ali Shah, the top official at Kohat District Hospital, confirmed that 15 bodies had been brought to the facility along with wounded people. A doctor told the German Press Agency that more than 50 injured had been taken to a nearby hospital, and officials warned the toll could climb further. Police said one attacker was also killed in the explosion.

No group took responsibility. Both a regional branch of Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban, known as the TTP, operate in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, where security has deteriorated steadily in recent years.

Earlier in August, 14 people were killed in a suicide bombing outside a police station in the Swat Valley, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where hundreds had gathered to protest against rising violence. Police officers in the province have been targeted repeatedly in the preceding months.

Pakistan accuses the Taliban government in Kabul of sheltering militant groups near the frontier, an allegation the Afghan leadership rejects. Relations between the two neighbours worsened sharply in the spring, and exchanges of fire have since become routine.

Separately, security forces killed seven militants in two operations in southwestern Balochistan province, state-run Radio Pakistan reported.