Pakistani Taleban kill two police officers in night raid in northwest
An overnight raid on a police checkpoint claimed by the Pakistani Taleban killed two officers, police said on Thursday, while one more remains missing after being abducted in the northwest.
More than 1,600 people were killed in attacks in Pakistan last year which was the deadliest in almost a decade according to the Centre for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.
Around 10 militants attacked the checkpoint near Karak city in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province around 1am, police official Nazar Muhammad said.
"Two police officers stationed at the checkpoint were martyred, and six others were injured," he said.
Local administrative official Misbah Uddin also confirmed the number of dead and wounded.
"The terrorists used heavy weaponry, including mortar shells, during the assault," he said.
On Wednesday, an officer was travelling home from his police station elsewhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when armed men stopped his car and "abducted him", according to local police official Sajjad Ali.
The Pakistani Taleban — which shares a common ideology and lineage with the Afghan Taleban — claimed responsibility for both the checkpoint attack and the kidnapping.
They have waged a decades-long insurgency in Pakistan's regions bordering Afghanistan. Violence has surged in those regions since the Taliban surged back to power in 2021.
Pakistan has accused the Taleban government of failing to root out militants who launch attacks from Afghan soil, a charge it routinely denies.
On Sunday, armed militants killed four members of Pakistan's security forces in an attack on their vehicle in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The day before, separatist militants claimed responsibility for a huge raid killing 18 state paramilitaries in southwestern Balochistan province.
According to AFP data 38 people, mainly security officials, have been killed in instances of militant and anti-state violence in Pakistan since the beginning of this year.
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