PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistani security forces ended a roughly 20-hour standoff with militants inside a police compound in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, officials said.

The confrontation began Friday in Kohat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, after a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a mosque. Gunmen then stormed the police facility, killing 21 people and injuring 103 others.

Many of those killed and wounded were police officers and people who had been attending prayers at the mosque. The blast destroyed part of an exterior wall and severely damaged the mosque.

Several militants took positions inside the police compound after the initial attack, leading to a prolonged exchange of gunfire with security forces. The facility houses the police Special Branch intelligence agency, offices of the Counter Terrorism Department and residences for counterterrorism officers.

Police official Mohammad Sadiq said the operation continued for about 20 hours. Security personnel searched the compound and surrounding areas after the standoff ended.

Local police said the bodies of eight attackers were recovered. Sadiq said two militants detonated explosives inside the compound on Saturday morning, while security forces killed six other attackers, not including the bombers.

Authorities did not immediately provide a complete account of the casualties resulting from the final stage of the operation or clarify how many militants had initially entered the compound.

The attack has raised tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan’s Information Ministry accused militants with alleged links to Afghanistan of carrying out the assault and criticized the Afghan Taliban government for what Islamabad described as allowing militant groups to operate from Afghan territory.

The ministry said Pakistan had the ability and intention to confront terrorist threats and would take measures it considered necessary under international law to protect its citizens and territory. It called on Kabul to take what it described as credible and sustained steps against militant sanctuaries and recruitment and training networks.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Kohat attack, according to Pakistan’s Information Ministry, although Islamabad said condemnation should be accompanied by concrete measures.

No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault. Suspicion was expected to focus on Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban or TTP, which has carried out numerous attacks against Pakistani security forces in recent years.

The TTP is separate from Afghanistan’s Taliban government but is allied with the group that returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Kabul of providing shelter to TTP leaders and allowing militants to launch attacks across the border. Afghan authorities deny those accusations.

Funeral prayers for police officers killed in the assault were held Friday at the police lines in Kohat. The bodies of the victims were later returned to their families for burial, Sadiq said.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif separately condemned the attack and expressed condolences to the victims’ families. Zardari said eliminating militant groups was essential to Pakistan’s national security.

The attack also recalled a deadly bombing in 2023, when a suicide bomber killed 101 people, mostly police officers, at a mosque inside a heavily fortified police compound in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

SOURCE: Associated Press (AP), Riaz Khan and Munir Ahmed, September 24, 2026.