Motorcycle bomb at police station kills at least 2 and wounds several in northwestern Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Explosives rigged to a parked motorcycle ignited near the gate of a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing at least two people, including a child, and wounding several others, police said. Elsewhere, a security checkpoint was attacked by a suicide bomber.

The first assault took place in Bannu, a district in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, local police official Fida Mohammad said.

He said the dead and wounded were taken to a nearby hospital but provided no additional details. No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban.

Hours later, an explosives-laden vehicle driven by a suicide bomber and accompanied by a group of fighters exploded while approaching a security checkpoint in the northwestern Bajaur district, a local police official, Zafar Khan, said. He said troops returned fire, killing at least eight Khawarij, a term that Pakistan uses for members of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

A girl was killed when the roof of a nearby house collapsed because of the impact of the blast, Khan said. Police said rescuers were still removing the rubble of the security post to rescue anyone trapped under it.

Khan said three officers were wounded when part of the checkpoint collapsed. He provided no further details.

Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in recent years, with the government frequently blaming the outlawed TTP. The group is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban who returned to power in 2021. The increase in attacks has strained relations between Islamabad and Kabul, as Pakistan accuses the TTP of operating freely inside Afghanistan, a charge both the TTP and Kabul deny.

An injured victim of a bomb explosion receives treatment at a compound of a hospital in Bannu, northwestern Pakistan, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ammad Khattak)

A man rushes with a baby girl, who was injured in a bomb explosion, for her treatment at a hospital in Bannu, northwestern Pakistan, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ammad Khattak)

Volunteers transport an injured victim of a bomb explosion upon arrival at a hospital in Bannu, northwestern Pakistan, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ammad Khattak)

VIENNA (AP) — Austrian public prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges Monday against a 21-year-old defendant who they say planned to carry out an attack on one of superstar singer Taylor Swift's concerts in Vienna in August 2024.

Vienna public prosecutors said in a statement that the unnamed defendant had declared allegiance to the Islamic State group by sharing propaganda material and videos via various messaging services.

Vienna prosecutors also accuse the defendant of having “obtained instructions on the internet for the construction of a shrapnel bomb based on the explosive triacetone triperoxide” typically used by IS, and of having produced a small amount of the explosive.

Prosecutors also say that the defendant had made "several attempts” to buy weapons illegally outside the country and to bring them to Austria.

Vienna public prosecutors plan to proceed with a criminal case against the unnamed suspect in Wiener Neustadt, a town near the Austrian capital.

The spokesperson for the Vienna public prosecutors office confirmed to The Associated Press that the defendant is in custody. Austrian media identified the suspect as Beran A. and said he was arrested in August 2024.

Austrian authorities canceled three planned Taylor Swift shows in Vienna in August 2024 after they said they foiled an apparent plot to target the performances.

The U.S. provided intelligence that fed into the decision to cancel the concerts.

“The United States has an enduring focus on our counterterrorism mission. We work closely with partners all over the world to monitor and disrupt threats. And so as part of that work, the United States did share information with Austrian partners to enable the disruption of a threat to Taylor Swift’s concerts there in Vienna,” then-White House national security spokesman John Kirby said in August 2024.

FILE - Austrian police officers watch swifts gathering in the city centre in Vienna on Aug.8, 2024. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader, file)