KACHA PAKHA, Pakistan (Reuters) — Two suicide bombings at a center for people displaced by a Pakistani military offensive against militants killed at least 38 people and wounded 65 on Saturday, an official said.
The attackers struck as about 300 people displaced by fighting were registering at an office in the village of Kacha Pakha in the northwest of the country, hoping to get food items, officials said.
The first of two male bombers was disguised as a woman in a billowing burqa. His attack was followed seconds later by a teenager who blew himself up, according to Khalid Khan Omarzai, a local official.
Pakistan’s military has carried out a series of crackdowns against Taliban fighters seeking to topple the government, destroying some of their bases. A group affiliated with Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks.
“The blasts were so powerful that the limbs of people scattered throughout the area,” said one witness, a resident named Mohammad Qasim. “People are searching limbs of their dear ones in nearby crop fields.” Shoes and bloodstained clothes lay strewn on the ground.
The military’s latest operations have been in the Orakzai and Khyber and Kurram regions.
Suicide bombings and the Taliban’s version of Islamic rule, which can involve public beheadings and floggings, have angered many Pakistanis.
”How can anyone call them human beings?” said Jabbar Ali, whose leg was wounded in Saturday’s bombings. “They are beasts who are killing innocent people. The government should finish them off once and for all.”