KARACHI: Militants launched an overnight attack on a police station in northwest Pakistan’s Bannu district, triggering a major security operation in which “several” fighters were killed, authorities said on Friday, marking the latest in a string of assaults on security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The attack comes a day after three policemen were killed in a drive-by shooting at a checkpoint in the Hangu district of KP province. It also follows a suicide bombing earlier this week on the headquarters of a paramilitary force in Peshawar, the provincial capital, with three personnel killed.
Police said militants opened fire overnight on the Ahmedzai police station, prompting an exchange of fire in which “several terrorists” were killed and injured. A second clash erupted in the Tarkha Oba area, where members of the Hathikhel tribe, a prominent local clan that has long resisted militant infiltration, confronted the fleeing fighters, triggering “heavy firing from both sides,” according to police.
“On the instructions of DIG Sajjad Khan, a large police contingent has been dispatched,” police said in a statement. “Search operation in the area is under way.”
“The peace of the area will be restored at all costs,” the statement quoted Khan as saying. “Security in the area is on high alert and the noose has been tightened around the terrorists.”
Such attacks are now a near-daily occurrence in KP, which has seen a sharp escalation in militant violence over the past two years. Islamabad accuses militant groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of planning and executing such cross-border attacks from Afghan territory, a charge the administration in Kabul denies.
