At least 21 people have been killed and dozens wounded in an attack on a mosque near police offices in Pakistan.
A vehicle bomb exploded at the mosque in Kohat, north-western Pakistan, as gunmen entered the compound and exchanged fire with officers.
Violence near the Afghanistan border has surged, with Pakistani Taliban militants targeting police and other security forces as the government intensifies operations against them.
Among those killed and wounded were police officers attending prayers at the mosque.
The bombing occurred in Kohat, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
An attacker rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the mosque, said Zulfiqar Hameed, the provincial police chief.
Six of the gunmen were killed, according to police, who said one suicide bomber attacked the nearby office of an intelligence agency.
Bilal Faizi, a senior rescue official, said most of the dead and wounded had been attending prayers at the mosque.
No group at once claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
The attack comes a day after a roadside bomb struck a security forces convoy in the north-western Hangu district and killed six soldiers.
Government troops also conducted raids in various areas Thursday, local time, and killed 10 militants believed to be members of the Pakistani Taliban, the military and police said.
In 2023, a suicide bomber killed 101 people in an attack inside a mosque in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.