By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a district court in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing at least nine people and injuring 25.

The bombing occurred at the court’s entrance in the town of Shabqadar in Charsadda district, city police chief Khalid Mohsin told reporters.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter faction of Pakistani Taliban’s mother group Tehrik-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP), has claimed responsibility for the attack, terming it retaliation for the execution of Mumtaz Qadri, who had killed a former Punjab province governor for calling the Muslim country’s blasphemy law “Draconian.”

In a statement, the group threatened to carry out more attacks.

This is the second major terrorist attack in the district this year.

A group of heavily-armed Taliban members stormed a university campus in Charsadda earlier this year, killing 22 people.

According to official statistics, more than 50,000 people, including 4,500 troops, have been killed in suicide bombings, gun battles and bomb blasts since the South Asian nuclear nation joined the so-called War on Terror in 2002.