Unidentified attackers have destroyed a state-run girls’ primary school in the troubled northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, where government troops are fighting militants, Press TV reports.Local officials told Press TV on Saturday that the assailants carried out the attack by detonating explosives in the remote village of the Mata Shah in the Salarzai area of the Bajaur tribal region, located 180 kilometers west of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, in the early hours of Friday.

The incident did not have any casualties since the school was empty at the time of the blast, local officials said.

Law enforcement agents cordoned off the area after the blast and launched an investigation. No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. However, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants are the main suspects in such incidents.

The TTP has banned female education in northwestern Pakistan in a move that has affected thousands of girls there and caused the number of enrolments to drop dramatically.

The group warns parents against sending their daughters to schools, describing education as ‘unnecessary’ or ‘harmful’ for girls.

Over the past several years, TTP militants have destroyed hundreds of schools, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, previously known as North-West Frontier Province.

NK/MP/MF/MA