Attack on northwest Pakistan police post kills 11 officers

What the report says

Al Jazeera, citing local authorities and police, reported that an attack on a police checkpoint in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province killed at least 11 officers and left 28 others hospitalized. The assault happened late Wednesday in Hangu district, close to the Afghan border, and developed into a prolonged exchange of fire between the attackers and security forces.

According to the report, police said the assailants began by using quadcopters carrying explosives against the post before launching an ambush. Security forces killed 15 attackers during the hours-long fighting. Among the dead officers was Deputy Superintendent Diyar Khan, who police said had arrived with reinforcements. District police officer Mujahid Hussain said three police vehicles were burned and another was taken.

No organization had claimed the Hangu attack at the time of Al Jazeera’s report. The incident followed a recent suicide bombing in nearby Tank district targeting Pakistani soldiers, which the Pakistan Taliban, or TTP, said it carried out. Al Jazeera reported that attacks in Pakistan’s border areas have increased in recent months, with police and military personnel among the main targets.

The attack matters because it adds to worsening insecurity along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier and to strains between Islamabad and the Taliban-led government in Kabul. Pakistan says fighters plan and train from sanctuaries in Afghanistan, while Afghan authorities deny that accusation and describe the violence as an internal Pakistani issue. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder reported from Islamabad that relations between the two neighbours have deteriorated sharply after earlier cross-border fighting this year.