PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A pair of militant attacks rocked northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, with officials reporting at least three police officers killed and 20 more wounded in what appears to be the latest surge of violence in the country’s troubled border region with Afghanistan.
The first strike took place in the Upper Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where armed militants opened fire on a security convoy. Local police official Ibrahim Khan said three officers were killed and 15 others were hurt in the ambush. He added that security forces fought back and the gun battle was still underway at the time of his report. Khan did not immediately provide information on militant casualties.
Just hours after that attack, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed vehicle into a police station in the city of Bannu, also located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. At least five more police officers were wounded in that blast, which caused significant damage to part of the station. No deaths were immediately reported from the Bannu attack.
No group has stepped forward to claim responsibility for either attack. However, suspicion is expected to focus on the Pakistani Taliban, a militant organization formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
While the TTP is a separate organization from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement, the two groups maintain close ties. Pakistani authorities have long accused the TTP of using bases inside Afghanistan to carry out attacks, a claim that both the TTP and the Taliban-led government in Kabul have denied.
