Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Thursday that militants had staged a gun-and-bomb attack on a police outpost, killing three security force members.
The banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the deadly nighttime raid in the Khyber district, bordering Afghanistan.
The district police chief, Imran Khan, told reporters that at least four heavily armed assailants, including a suicide bomber, stormed the premises in what he said was a “coordinated attack” and inflicted the casualties.
“They opened fire and lobbed hand grenades at police officers before a suicide bomber blew himself up. His accomplices later managed to escape,” Khan said.
The TTP claimed in a statement that a lone suicide bomber was behind the raid on the police post, though the group often releases inflated details about its attacks.
The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a deadly insurgency in the country for more than 15 years to impose what they call an “Islamic system” in Pakistan, killing tens of thousands of people.
In November, the TTP called off a monthslong shaky cease-fire with the government, disrupting peace talks between the two adversaries and leading to an intensification in militant attacks across the country.
The talks were brokered and hosted by Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban after they regained control of the war-torn country in August 2021.
The TTP is an offshoot and a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. Its leadership has taken refuge on Afghan soil, which Islamabad says is a source of tensions in its otherwise cordial relations with Kabul.
The United States has listed the Pakistani Taliban as a global terrorist organization.
islamabad —
