Pakistani Taliban claims responsibility for attack on gov't office

A Pakistani Taliban group claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on government building in northwestern city of Mardan that killed at least one person and injured 17 others on Tuesday.

The bomber targeted the office of Exercise and Taxation office in a busy area of Mardan, some 60 kilometers from Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Jamaatul Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Our bomber has carried out the attack," Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesman for the group claimed the attack by the phone to the local media. The spokesperson also claimed killing of a security official in the Bajaur tribal region on Tuesday.

The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group is considered the most brutal Taliban group which massacred more than 70 people and injured nearly 300, including children and women, when a suicide bomber hit people at a public park last month.

In December last year, this group killed at least 26 people and injured 50 others in a suicide attack against the National Database and Registration Authority office in Mardan.

Pakistani officials said the group's leaders had fled a military offensive in North Waziristan tribal region in 2014 and now operate from the Afghan side of the border. Enditem