On the cusp of the volatile tribal areas, the Shia-dominated Astarzai village was in many ways an obvious target for an attack by Sunni militant groups.
On Friday, the village was thronging with shoppers when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the Hikmat Ali hotel, owned by a local Shia businessman.
This is a busy commercial hub, located in the middle of a hotbed of sectarian conflict.
It is the first of a series of Shia settlements stretching up to the town of Hangu. West of Hangu, Sunnis dominate.
The broader Kohat-Hangu region is a patchwork of rival sects and loyalties.
Astarzai has more the look of a town than a village now - home to more than 10,000 people.
On the main road between Kohat and Hangu it serves as the main shopping point for all the Shia and Sunni villages dotted in the wilderness of the Orakzai tribal region.
Witnesses told the BBC the blast that hit the market around the Katcha Pakha roundabout demolished many buildings.
The head of the village council told the BBC how local residents were desperately digging in hope of finding survivors.
"People are doing it with their bare hands," Mehtabul Hasan said.
"They pulled out one dead body from the debris of a shop just half an hour ago."
History of violence
The people of the Orakzai tribal region have traditionally been drawn into sectarian conflict.
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A hold-up by Sunnis in one area causes a hold-up by Shias in another and so on.
Astarzai's population used to be quite mixed. Shias lived among Sunnis and vice versa.
But as the years have gone by the population has shifted and Astarzai has become mostly Shia.
Sectarian conflict in this area dates from the early 1980s, when Sunni groups received arms and training in the Afghan war.
During the past two years, the area has been the scene of repeated militant attacks in which hundreds of soldiers, policemen and civilians have been killed.
Frequent Taliban attacks along the road leading from Kohat to Kurram led to a virtual blockade of upper Kurram region that still continues.
A major reason for the Taliban attacks has been to force the Shias on the defensive and get a toehold in Kurram, which has strategic value for Taliban forays into Afghan areas close to capital, Kabul.
Shias have so far denied them this advantage, and last year a Shia tribal force pushed Taliban fighters from their major command and control centre in lower Kurram.
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