ISLAMABAD: Three police officers were killed and two civilians wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police van in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Monday, police confirmed, as militant activity continues to surge across the region.
The volatile province, which shares a border with Afghanistan, has experienced a wave of violence this month, with attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and affiliated groups claiming the lives of numerous security forces and civilians.
The most recent incident occurred in the Tank district, where assailants targeted a police vehicle in the Wazirabad area during the early hours of Monday, according to local authorities.
“Unidentified gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on police in the Wazirabad area, leaving three policemen martyred and two civilians injured,” said Tank police spokesman Ibrahim Khan in comments to Arab News. He added that a large contingent of police was deployed to the scene to locate those responsible for the attack.
The wounded civilians were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment, and an investigation into the incident remains underway, officials said.
This attack comes on the heels of a deadly gun-and-bomb assault on a police compound in KP’s Kohat district on September 18, which left 23 people dead, including 17 police officers, according to police and counterterrorism sources. The militant faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur claimed responsibility for that attack, which has since prompted cross-border military operations between Pakistan and Afghanistan beginning September 21.
Additionally, on Saturday, the TTP took credit for an attack near the Aman Mela checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan district that resulted in at least 12 fatalities and more than 30 injuries, according to police sources.
Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government of harboring groups like the TTP, alleging that these militants use Afghan soil to orchestrate attacks across the border. The Taliban government in Kabul has repeatedly denied these allegations, insisting that Pakistan’s security challenges are internal matters that should be resolved without external interference.
