LANDI KOTAL: Twenty-two Khasadars were killed when a suicide bomber struck a security post near Torkham along the Afghan border on Thursday evening.

According to witnesses, the bomber blew himself up when the tribal policemen gathered at the checkpost and were about to break their fast.

The bodies and the injured were taken to Landi Kotal’s Agency Headquarters Hospital in Khyber tribal region.

‘The scene here is chaotic. We have called all medical staff to deal with the situation,’ a doctor at the hospital told Dawn on telephone.

‘So far we have received 22 bodies, but we can’t say at the moment about the exact number of casualties. The situation is bad and we have asked for ambulances from other towns,’ Dr Zar Alam Shinwari said.

Local people and transport workers said they had retrieved 13 bodies from the blast site. ‘We collected body parts and put them into handcarts,’ they added.

Torkham, about 55km north of Peshawar, is one of the main border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan and connects Khyber with Afghanistan’s eastern Nangrahar province. It is the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Landi Kotal’s political tehsildar Nasir Khan confirmed that 22 people had lost their lives, but warned that the death toll could rise. ‘We are still pulling out bodies.’

(According to AFP, a senior administration official, Rehan Gul Khattak, said ‘authorities have found head of the bomber at the site of the attack’).

The witnesses said that personnel of the Khyber Rifles, a paramilitary force, and Khasadars had reached the place after 30 minutes and cordoned off the area to retrieve the bodies and collect evidence.

The suicide bombing came just two days after the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan announced a new successor to Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a drone missile attack early this month.

The TTP has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but a security official said the group had an active presence in the region.

The Dr Abdullah Azzam Brigade later claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, based in Orakzai tribal region, is affiliated with the TTP and is named after the fiery Palestinian scholar, Dr Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who was killed in a car bomb blast in University Town, Peshawar, on Nov 24, 1989.

A spokesman for the group called a local reporter and warned of further attacks on security forces if the government did not stop supplies to Nato forces from the region.