AKIPRESS.COM - At least 44 people have been killed and almost 200 injured in a bomb blast in Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that targeted a political party gathering.

Police said the explosion at a rally on Sunday afternoon for the conservative Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party (JUI-F), a government coalition partner, was carried out by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives vest close to the stage where several senior leaders of the party were sitting, The Guardian reports.

It said initial investigations suggested the Islamic State group (IS) – which operates in Afghanistan and is an enemy of the Afghan Taliban – could be behind the attack, and officers were still investigating. No group has claimed responsibility.