Five Pakistani police personnel were killed on Tuesday when their van was ambushed in a bombing and shooting attack in the country’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa district, provincial police said, as Pakistan struggles with a resurgence of militant violence.
Provincial police said the vehicle was first targeted with improvised explosives before the attackers opened fire, killing four officers and the driver. No group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack. However, suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, which is separate from but aligned with Afghanistan’s Taliban government and has been blamed by authorities for previous attacks, reported Daily Sabah
Justice For Policemen
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack. “Police have always played a frontline role in the war against terrorism,” Sharif said.
Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper, added that Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Suhail Afridi condemned the attack. In separate statements, they said the assailants would be brought to justice and expressed condolences to the families of the killed police officers.
Pakistan-Afghanistan Conflict
The attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Karak district, a region relatively unscathed by militant attacks, comes as relations between Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan have collapsed after a surge in violence.
The countries have struggled to maintain a truce following their worst border clashes since the Taliban came to power in October, with Islamabad blaming the rise in militancy on groups using Afghan soil to plot their attacks. Kabul denies the charges, saying Pakistan’s security is an internal problem. Talks in Istanbul last week ended without agreement.
Pakistan’s mountainous border regions are home to Islamist militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban, who have waged a war against the Pakistani state for nearly 20 years.
(with inputs from Reuters)
