Militants kill 3 police officers in attack on checkpoint in northwest Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – A group of militants armed with assault rifles attacked a roadside police checkpoint overnight in northwest Pakistan, killing three officers before fleeing, police said Thursday.

Officers returned fire at the checkpoint in Hangu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and It was not immediately clear whether the attackers also suffered losses or injuries, District Police Chief Khan Zeb said.

An investigation and a search operation to track down the assailants were underway Thursday, he said.

Though no group claimed responsibility, suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban. Officials have blamed the group for similar attacks in recent years.

The latest assault came days after two suicide bombers and a gunman stormed the headquarters of security forces in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing three officers and wounding 11 others.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Thursday praised the officers killed in Hangu for their “bravery and sacrifice,” saying police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were playing a critical role in combating militants.

The military has also stepped up intelligence-based operations against militants in recent weeks. In the latest raid, security forces killed 22 militants in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Wednesday, the military said on Thursday.

It identified the killed militants only as “Khawarij,” a term Pakistan uses for Pakistani Taliban.

In a separate incident, three children were killed Wednesday when an explosive device detonated outside their house in Bolan, a district in the southwestern Balochistan province. Authorities are still investigating, police official Jan Mohammad Khosa said Thursday.

Pakistan has experienced a surge in violence in recent years and the government often assigns responsibility to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The TTP is separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

The increase in attacks has strained relations between Pakistan’s government in Islamabad and authorities in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, with Pakistan accusing the TTP of operating freely inside Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Afghanistan denies the allegation, but tensions escalated after the Taliban blamed Pakistan for an Oct. 9 drone strike that caused explosions in Kabul. The ensuing clashes killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and militants before Qatar brokered a ceasefire on Oct. 19 that remains in place.

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Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.