Pakistan's military has been fighting the Taliban in the country's northwest for more than a year, but suicide bombings and attacks still happen all too frequently.
The Kurram agency was cut off from the nearest city, Peshawar, and neighbouring Afghanistan, as armed groups increased in power.
But after a military offensive launched last December in the area the government says it is back in control.
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan travelled with the Pakistani army to Kurram, which it says is now 80 per cent cleared of Taliban fighters.
