Story highlights Suicide bombers attack Peshawar and Mardan Friday morning

13 dead in Mardan, one killed on outskirts of Peshawar

Peshawar, Pakistan (CNN) At least 14 people were killed Friday in the latest suicide attacks by a Pakistani Taliban splinter group targeting Christians and lawyers in the country, authorities say.

Both attacks were claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of Pakistan's Tehreek-i Taliban (TTP) -- also known as the Pakistani Taliban -- which has killed scores of people in previous attacks targeting both groups in the country this year.

In the city of Mardan, in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at least 13 people were killed and another 53 injured in an attack at the city's district courts Friday, District Police Officer Faisal Shehzad told CNN.

The attacker threw a hand grenade at the court gates, then blew blew himself up after security prevented him from entering, Senior Police Superintendent Shafiullah Khan said.

Four of those killed were lawyers, according to Amir Hussain, the president of the Mardan Bar Association.

Read More</s>Twin attacks have hit Pakistan today after 12 were killed in a suicide blast at a courthouse and four Taliban bombers tried to blow themselves up in a Christian colony.

The bodies of lawyers, police officers and civilians have been recovered from the wreckage at the court building in the city of Mardan in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

On the same day, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a Christian colony near the town of Peshawar, killing one civilian, before being shot dead by soldiers.

In Mardan a suicide bomber launched a grenade at the district court before detonating his explosives, according to government spokesman Mushtaq Ghani.

He said that lawyers, policemen and passers-by were among those killed in the attack. Some of the 52 wounded were critically injured, Ghani said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for second attack.

Earlier, four suicide bombers who tried to attack a Christian colony were killed in a gunfight with security forces.

Soldiers backed by army helicopters exchanged gunfire with militants in suicide vests who had tried to storm into the colony near Warsak Dam, just north of Peshawar in the northwest of the country.

Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction, claimed responsibility for the attack.

'Four suicide bombers with arms and ammunition entered the Christian Colony at Warsak after hitting a security guard at 5.50am,' the Pakistan army said in a statement.

'Security forces promptly responded and surrounded the area. Exchange of fire took place and all four terrorists were killed,' it said, adding that two paramilitary soldiers, a policeman and two security guards were wounded in the gunfight.

The 'situation is under control,' the statement said, adding that troops were now carrying out a house to house search of the area.

Discrimination and violence against religious minorities is commonplace in Pakistan, where Muslims account for more than 90 percent of the population.

The Pakistani Taliban in particular routinely target minority groups, and in 2011 gunned down Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who was federal minister for minority affairs.

A Taliban suicide bomber targeted Christians in a park in the eastern city of Lahore at Easter this year, killing more than 70 people, including many children.

Taliban militants stormed a school in Peshawar in December 2014, killing more than 150 people, mostly children, in Pakistan's deadliest-ever terror attack.

The army launched an operation in June 2014 in a bid to wipe out militant bases in the tribal areas and so bring an end to the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004.
Islamic militants attack Christian sections of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, leaving 13 dead in the city of Mardan.