Over 30, including women and children, killed after gunmen attack passenger vehicles in Pakistan

At least 38 people, including women and children, were killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a convoy of passenger vehicles traveling through a remote area of Pakistan. 

The latest attack was carried out on 200 vehicles as they travelled through the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, according to the area’s deputy police commissioner. 

Chief Secretary for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, confirmed the attack, saying that the gunmen targeted passenger vans travelling from Parachinar in Kurram in a convoy. 

Among the fatalities in the attack were a woman and a child, Chaudhry said, adding that the toll is likely to rise. 

“There were two convoys of passenger vehicles, one carrying passengers from Peshawar to Parachinar and another from Parachinar to Peshawar, when armed men opened fire on them,” Reuters reported quoting local sources. 

No group has claimed responsibility for the incident yet. 

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the latest attack on innocent civilians. “Attacking innocent passengers is a cowardly and inhumane act,” he wrote in a post on X. 

Details of exactly what happened are still emerging, but Javed ullah Mehsud, a senior administration official, told AFP "approximately 10 attackers" were involved, "firing indiscriminately from both sides of the road". 

In August, 23 people were killed after they were forced out of their vehicles and shot by gunmen in southwest Pakistan. 

The militants had stopped several buses, trucks and vans and shot people after checking their ethnicity in the district of Musakhail in Balochistan province. 

Kurram, in Pakistan’s north-west, also borders several Afghan provinces which are home to anti-Shia militant groups, including the Islamic State group and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).