PESHAWAR: Gunmen killed three government employees and two civilians in separate attacks in Pakistan’s northwestern Dera Ismail Khan district on Tuesday, officials said, amid a surge in militant violence in the region bordering Afghanistan.

In the deadlier attack, unidentified gunmen opened fire near Bhatti Pump on University Road, killing two Federal Board of Revenue officials and two civilians, according to information shared with Arab News.

Rescue 1122 said its control room received a report at 11:40 a.m. of an attack on Customs personnel at the location, after which emergency teams were dispatched to the scene.

“Rescue personnel took custody of the bodies of four deceased persons at the scene and began transferring them to DHQ Hospital Dera Ismail Khan,” the emergency service said in a statement.

In a separate attack earlier on Tuesday, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a highway police mobile van on a bypass in the district, killing its driver and wounding the officer in charge of the patrol and another policeman, according to information shared with Arab News.

Police and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off both locations, collected evidence and launched searches for the attackers. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.

The shootings are the latest violence in Dera Ismail Khan, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that has become a major flashpoint in Pakistan’s fight against militants, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Pakistani security forces said they killed three militants in an intelligence-based operation in the district on Monday, a day after authorities reported killing eight others, including three commanders. The state refers to TTP militants as “Fitna Al-Khawarij.”

The latest violence also comes less than two weeks after an explosives-laden vehicle struck a joint checkpoint at Aman Mela in Dera Ismail Khan on Sept. 26, followed by gunfire. Twelve people were initially reported killed and about 35 wounded, while an ambulance responding to the attack also came under fire.

The Federal Board of Revenue said two Customs personnel were among those killed at the checkpoint and that personnel from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police and provincial excise department were also killed or wounded.

Pakistan has experienced a sharp rise in militant violence in recent years, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which border Afghanistan. The deterioration has coincided with the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021 and the breakdown of a ceasefire between the Pakistani government and the TTP in late 2022.

The TTP is a separate organization from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban but the two share ideological and historical ties. Islamabad accuses the Taliban government of allowing TTP militants to operate from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan and launch attacks across the border, an allegation Kabul denies, saying Pakistan’s security problems are an internal matter.

The dispute has sharply strained relations between the neighboring countries and triggered repeated cross-border confrontations.

Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Helmand provinces last week, saying it had targeted militant hideouts and killed 22 fighters. Afghanistan said nine civilians were killed, while the United Nations said at least 10 civilians, mostly children, died. The competing accounts could not be independently verified.

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said on Monday that problems between Afghanistan and Pakistan could be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, as tensions over cross-border militancy continued.