Hangu District Attack Leaves 11 Police Officers and 15 Attackers Dead
An ambush on a police checkpoint in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan has killed at least 11 police officers and injured dozens, local authorities confirmed. Security forces engaged in an hours-long gun battle with the attackers, who first used explosive-laden quadcopters to target the police post, according to a police statement. Local police said 15 attackers were also killed during the raid. Among those killed was Deputy Superintendent Diyar Khan, who had led reinforcements to the scene. Attackers set three police cars alight and took another police vehicle, added district police officer Mujahid Hussain. The attack left 28 officers hospitalized with injuries.
The attack comes days after an explosives-laden vehicle was driven into a security check post in Tank district, killing 15 people, including soldiers and government personnel. Security forces responded by killing 12 militants, according to Pakistan’s military. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has seen a surge in violence attributed to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an Islamist militant group. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, noted that there has been a spike in attacks targeting police and security forces along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Islamabad claims fighters use safe havens in Afghanistan to train and plan attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan’s Taliban government has denied the charge and said the unrest is Pakistan’s domestic problem.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of harboring militants and fueling attacks along the border, a claim the Taliban government rejects. The border dispute has led to a diplomatic breakdown and cross-border airstrikes by Pakistan. In June, the latest strikes reportedly killed dozens of civilians in eastern Afghanistan, according to the Taliban and the United Nations. Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have dropped to an all-time low, as each side accuses the other of harboring groups that work against one another, said Hyder.