Pakistani authorities said that a suicide bomb attack has killed Saturday at least 18 people and wounded at least 25 people at an election rally in northwestern Pakistan, the Associated Press reports.

North West Frontier province, bordering Afghanistan, is a region where Islamic extremists operate and has been the scene of other attacks.

The blast occurred in the town of Charsadda while 200 members of a regional political party, Awami National party, an ethnic Pashtun nationalist party, were listening to their leaders. According to BBC, Awami National party is seen as an anti-Islamist force; consequently al-Qaeda might be suspected for the blast.

Area police chief Mohammed Khan said 18 people died, but party officials told local television stations that 20 were killed in the blast.

The police officials blame this attack on the Islamic militants, who are also held responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s death, Voice of America reports. Her death determined the delay of the parliamentary elections which were originally scheduled in January.

Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said that the suicide bomber might have detonated his explosives “very close to the stage”, where the leaders of the party were gathered.

Nawaz added that the militants are targeting the political parties just before the general elections scheduled on February 18, and expressed his fears for the security of the politicians.

“We are beefing security measures because only a little more than a week is left in the elections,” he said.

Zahid Khan, an ANP spokesman, told AFP that he believes Pakistani government intelligence agencies are behind the suicide attack: “We blame security agencies for the attack. The agencies want to create civil war and want to support dictatorship.”

Three days ago the ANP’s vice-president Fazalur Rehman Atakhel was shot dead by a gunman on a motorbike, in the southern city of Karachi.