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Police report that militants have killed three officers in unrest in northwest Pakistan
Authorities say that militants shot and killed three police officers on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan. This is the latest act of violence in the troubled northwest region of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.
Kashif Aftab Abbasi, the senior superintendent of operations, said that the three cops were killed while chasing terrorists who had attacked a police station in Sarband, near Peshawar, with hand grenades, sniper rifles, and automatic weapons.
The TTP, an outlawed terrorist organisation, claimed responsibility for the police station attack and the deaths of the officers on Saturday.
The TTP has been fighting a rebellion in Pakistan for the past 15 years. They want a stricter application of Islamic law, the release of their members, and less military involvement in the country’s former tribal areas.
They also took responsibility for the incident that left two police officers dead on Friday at a checkpoint in Punjab’s Taunsa area.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan says that the central government is very worried about the lack of law and order in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province that Peshawar is in. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is in northwest Pakistan.
He chastised local officials for failing to learn from previous attacks, such as the militant takeover and hostage crisis at Bannu province’s counterterrorism bureau.
Police officers and police stations are being targeted by terrorists, according to Khan. In reference to the counter-terror department that was taken over by insurgents, he added, “It appears that the provincial government has not even learned any lessons from Bannu CTD headquarters.”
Even the local police can be attacked, so he said that the local chief minister was more interested in politics than in keeping the peace, and he asked what would happen to the protection of regular citizens.
After the Pakistani government ended a truce with the TTP on its own in November, attacks on security forces went up.
Although distinct, the group is associated with the Afghan Taliban.
