Raid on Pakistani police post leaves 11 officers dead

The death toll in the deadly militant attack on a police station in northwestern Pakistan has risen to 11.

Security forces killed 15 militants in an hour-long gunfight overnight after targeting Khazina police station in Hangu district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, police official Irfan Khan said on Thursday.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Suspicion is expected to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which has stepped up attacks against Pakistani security forces in the region in recent months.

Among the dead was senior police officer Diyar Khan, who led reinforcements to the scene, according to a statement from the state police on Thursday.

More than two dozen police officers were injured in the attack.

Police said militants attacked the police station with heavy weapons.

According to the statement, reinforcements sent to the scene were ambushed on the road and damaged the armored personnel carrier before the police responded.

The attack came just days after a suicide bombing in the nearby Tank district killed 15 people, including 12 Pakistani army soldiers.

TTP took responsibility for that attack.

Pakistan has seen a rise in militant violence in recent years, much of which has been blamed on the TTP, a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, which returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.

Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing sanctuary to TTP militants, a claim Kabul has denied.