TTP revives suicide bombings in Pakistan with car bomb attack; Taliban denies link

A powerful explosion tore through Pakistan’s North Waziristan on Thursday, targeting security forces in the volatile Mir Ali area, CNN-News18 reported. The attack came barely a day after Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud appeared in a video message, in what officials fear may signal the beginning of a new phase of the group’s insurgency.

According to top Taliban sources quoted by CNN-News18, the TTP deployed a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), a tactic commonly used in Middle Eastern war zones but rarely seen in recent years in Pakistan. The shift indicates a move toward high-casualty, morale-crushing assaults intended to destabilise the state rather than seize territory.

Analysts told CNN-News18 that the use of a VBIED represents a “strategic escalation” that exposes Islamabad’s deepening security failures. Once hailed as a “pacified zone” after years of military operations, the Mir Ali–Datta Khel belt is again becoming a hub of militant activity. “The Pakistani state’s inability to sustain control over its own tribal districts shows how fragile its counterterror gains truly were,” one regional security analyst said.

Taliban sources also confirmed that the revival of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group under the TTP umbrella is fueling this resurgence. The faction, long entrenched in North Waziristan, is believed to have retained strong logistical and intelligence networks that are now being used to stage attacks inside Pakistan. “This consolidation shows that militant command structures have become increasingly coordinated across both sides of the border,” CNN-News18 quoted a senior Afghan security source as saying.