Police in northwestern Pakistan say a bomb has exploded outside a girls school, killing a policeman and wounding eight other people.

Authorities said the blast happened Tuesday in the Mardan area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the Afghan border.

Three of the wounded are policemen.

Earlier this month, suspected militants blew up a girls school in the same area.

The Taliban is active in parts of the region and frequently targets schools as part of its ban on girls' education.

Provincial Education Minister Sardar Hussain Babak told VOA in October that some 1,200 schools have been destroyed in Pakistan's northwestern region in the last few years.