One day after the resignation of Pakistan’s president, a deadly terrorist attack underscored the challenges facing the leaders of the country’s fractious coalition government.

Police said a suspected sectarian suicide bombing in Pakistan’s volatile northwest killed 25 people and wounded more than 30 others.

It happened at a hospital in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, the same region where Pakistan’s security forces regularly clash with al Qaeda and Taliban-backed insurgents.

Many of the victims were supporters of a local Shi’ite Muslim leader whose body had been taken to the hospital after he was shot dead earlier.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, but a local official said it was more likely sectarian as there has been considerable friction between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in the region.

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