ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s counterterrorism police said on Friday they had killed a militant commander accused of masterminding a September attack on a police compound in the northwestern city of Kohat, where 23 people, including 17 police personnel, died in a suicide bombing and subsequent gunbattle.

The September 18 assault on the city’s old Police Lines complex was among the deadliest attacks on security personnel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in recent months, with militants detonating an explosives-laden vehicle before storming the compound and engaging security forces in a prolonged fight.

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) said Zahid Gul, a commander associated with the Gul Bahadur militant group, was killed in a joint intelligence-based operation by its personnel and security forces in the Lakki Marwat region of the province.

“Zahid Gul, the mastermind of the suicide attack on the old Kohat Police Lines, was killed in the operation,” the CTD said in a statement.

The department said Gul had personally guided the explosives-laden vehicle used in the attack and was wanted by security agencies in connection with several other major militant incidents.

The assault killed 17 police personnel and six civilians and wounded more than 100 people. Security forces subsequently killed eight attackers during a clearance operation lasting around 21 hours.

The CTD said Gul had also been involved in transporting several suicide bombers to Kohat and had brought another attacker to target the city’s new Police Lines complex about two months earlier, but security forces had foiled that attempt.

According to the department, his next intended targets included a Pakistan Air Force facility and a police training school in Kohat.

The CTD also linked Gul to a bank robbery in Kohat, in which Rs6 million ($21,660) was stolen and subsequently distributed among militant groups operating in the neighboring Bannu district.

The department said other members of Gul’s militant network were already in the custody of security agencies.

The Gul Bahadur group is part of a network of militant factions operating in Pakistan’s northwest, where attacks on police and security forces have intensified in recent years.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused militant groups of using neighboring Afghanistan as a base for cross-border attacks, an allegation Kabul has denied.