A group of terrorists armed with assault rifles attacked a roadside police checkpoint overnight in northwest Pakistan, killing three officers before fleeing, police said on Thursday.
Officers returned fire at the checkpoint in Hangu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
It was not immediately clear whether the attackers also suffered losses or injuries, Hangu District Police Officer Khan Zeb said.
An investigation and a search operation to track down the assailants were underway Thursday, he said.
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.
In a separate incident, three children were killed on 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 on Thursday.
Pakistan has experienced a surge in violence in recent years at the hands of the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an alliance of several terror groups formed in 2007 that primarily targets Pakistan.
The TTP is separate from Afghanistan’s Taliban interim government, but Pakistan alleges Kabul is assisting them.
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 October 9 drone strike that caused explosions in Kabul.
The ensuing clashes killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and terrorists before Qatar brokered a ceasefire on October 19 that remains in place.
