An attack late Wednesday on a checkpoint in northern Pakistan left at least seven police officers and eight alleged “terrorists” dead, local media reported, just days after more than two dozen people were killed in a similar clash in the volatile border province.
The Wednesday evening attack occurred in Hangu district, in Pakistan’s northern border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to Geo News, citing local District Police Officer Tariq Habib. An additional 22 police personnel were injured, Habib said, with a clearance operation launched in the area afterward. No group has yet claimed responsibility.
The assault comes just days after unidentified militants attacked another checkpoint in the province’s Tank district. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa borders Afghanistan and has been gripped by an escalating campaign of violence by the Islamist Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan group. In Friday’s attack, militants rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a security check post, killing 15 people, including soldiers, police, and government personnel. The military said security forces killed 12 militants in response.
Pakistan has repeatedly blamed the surge in attacks across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southern border province of Balochistan on militancy originating from Afghanistan, an accusation the Afghan Taliban government denies. The dispute has fuelled a bitter rift and armed conflict between the two neighboring countries, with Pakistan carrying out deadly airstrikes and it says it targeted militants on Afghan soil. The Taliban government and the United Nations said dozens of civilians were killed in the latest round of Pakistani strikes on eastern Afghanistan in June.
