Qualla: 2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings

2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings: Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Siraj Raisani had survived assassination before. In 2011, grenades were thrown at the Balochistan politician; he lived, but his son Hakmal did not. Seven years later, on July 13, 2018, Raisani was about to address over a thousand supporters at an election rally in Mastung, a small district south of Quetta, when a suicide bomber carrying between 16 and 20 kilograms of explosives detonated in the crowd. This time, Raisani was among the dead. So were 148 other people. Hundreds of miles to the northeast, in Bannu, a second bomb tore through another campaign rally the same day. Pakistan's democratic process was under coordinated attack, and the elections were twelve days away.

2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings: A Season of Blood

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Mastung and Bannu bombings did not arrive in isolation. They were the culmination of a wave of political violence that swept Pakistan in the weeks before the July 25 general election. Earlier that month, a bombing at a candidate's office in North Waziristan wounded ten people...

2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings: Two Cities, One Afternoon

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In Mastung, the detonation killed 128 people immediately. By July 15, the death toll had climbed to 149, with 186 wounded -- making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan since the Army Public School massacre in Peshawar in 2014. The Islamic State claimed responsibility an...

2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings: Warnings Unheeded

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The intelligence existed. After the Peshawar bombing that killed Bilour on July 10, Pakistan's National Counter Terrorism Authority forwarded twelve specific threat warnings to federal and provincial interior ministries. NACTA named six politicians at high risk, including Durrani...

2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings: Overwhelmed

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Before ambulances reached Mastung, ordinary people loaded the wounded into taxis and drove them to Quetta Civil Hospital, where the provincial government declared a state of emergency. Seventy-three bodies arrived first, then waves of survivors -- eventually 110 victims were bein...

2018 Mastung and Bannu Bombings: Democracy Persists

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pakistan's caretaker government declared a day of mourning. The Election Commission designated 17,000 polling stations across the country as sensitive -- nearly six thousand in Sindh, nearly four thousand in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 1,768 in Balochistan. Politicians from every par...