PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen abducted seven policemen from a check post on Monday in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Bannu, police said, as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province battles a rise in militant attacks on cops and other government officials. 

Pakistan’s northwest has seen a rise in militant attacks in recent months, which Islamabad says are mostly carried out by Afghan nationals and their facilitators and by Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups who cross over into Pakistan using safe haven in Afghanistan. 

The Taliban government in Kabul says Pakistan’s security challenges are a domestic issue and cannot be blamed on the neighbor.

Police data shows 75 policemen have been killed and 113 injured in militant attacks and targeted assassinations in 2024 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.

“Armed men abducted seven police personnel from the Rocha checkpoint in the jurisdiction of Utmanzai Police Station in Bannu district,” District Police Officer (DPO) Zia Uddin told Arab News, saying up to 40 gunmen first surrounded the checkpoint in the mountainous area of Sub-Division Wazir on Monday evening.

“The armed men abducted seven police personnel from the Rocha checkpoint in the jurisdiction of Utmanzai Police Station in Bannu district.”

The militants also took away all weapons and equipment at the checkpoint. 

 “Four police personnel escaped as they were not present at the location at the time,” the DPO added. 

The Pakistani government and security officials have said repeatedly that such attacks have risen in recent months, many of them claimed by the TTP and launched from Afghan soil.

The TTP is separate from the Afghan Taliban movement, but pledges loyalty to the Islamist group that now rules Afghanistan after US-led international forces withdrew in 2021.

Islamabad says TTP uses Afghanistan as a base and says the ruling Taliban administration has provided safe havens to the group close to the border. The Taliban deny this.