Taliban to continue attacks on security forces

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat that killed 19.

MIRANSHAH: The Taliban said Tuesday they would continue to target Pakistani security forces with suicide attacks as they claimed responsibility for the latest blast that killed 19, its spokesman said.

"We are targeting Pakistani security forces because the government has allowed America to launch drone attacks on us," Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone.

"Rather it is on the Pakistan government's behest that drone attacks target us," he said.

"We will continue suicide attacks on security forces. Civilians should avoid proximity with them."

Tariq claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat in which 19 people were killed.

"We carried out the Lakki Marwat suicide attack," Tariq said, adding that the Taliban "regretted" the killing of schoolchildren in the attack.

"Our children are also killed in drone attacks," he said.

Washington has branded the tribal area on the Afghan border - part of which has now been hit by Pakistan's catastrophic flooding - a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.