Seven people were killed on Wednesday in a Taliban suicide attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore, officials said. The blast took place in the suburb of Raiwind in Lahore, the main town of central Punjab province, near a mosque hosting a religious congregation. At least 18 people were wounded. Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman of a state-run rescue service, told Reuters that his officials had taken seven dead bodies to hospitals. “Our rescuers are at work,” he said. “They have shifted so far seven bodies.” Deputy Inspector General of police Haider Ashraf said the bomb exploded when the police were changing guards at the checkpoint just outside an annual religious congregation in Raiwind, where nearly 80,000 people were in attendance. “A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle attacked the police,” Ashraf said. He said four of the dead were police. A Pakistani Taliban spokesman Mohammad Khurasani claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in a WhatsApp message sent to a Reuters reporter. Located in the east of the country, Lahore has largely been spared the extremist violence seen in the country’s northwest which sits at the edge of a lawless mountain range along the Afghan border. That area has long been home to local and foreign extremists from the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and where ISIS has lately made footholds. The Pakistani Taliban leadership have fled to neighboring Afghanistan from where Islamabad alleges they plan and execute terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. Washington on Thursday offered a $5 million bounty for the Pakistani Taliban militant leader, Mulllah Fazlullah, a day after a suspected US drone strike on a training camp in a remote part of Afghanistan killed his son and more than 20 other militants preparing to launch suicide attacks in Pakistan. The US cooperation comes amid worsening US-Pakistan relations, and coincided with a visit to Washington by Pakistan’s foreign secretary for talks expected to focus on boosting counter-terrorism cooperation and the US strategy in Afghanistan.