Militants armed with assault rifles attacked a security post in restive northwest Pakistan early on Tuesday (December 31, 2024), killing a police officer and a civilian, officials said.

Another officer was also wounded in the attack at the Draban Post in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police official Abdullah Khan said, adding that the civilian was an employee of the Customs department.

He also said security forces returned fire and that “a group of insurgents” fled the scene.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, who often target security forces across the country, especially in the former tribal regions in the troubled northwest bordering Afghanistan.

Security forces have also stepped up intelligence-based operations against the Pakistani Taliban, emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The TTP is a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.

Militants armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a security post in northwest Pakistan. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Militants armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a security post in northwest Pakistan and killed 10 officers in an intense shootout, police said Friday, October 25, 2024.

“Other security forces were wounded in the overnight attack in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,” local police official Abdul Rauf said.

He said the assailants suffered casualties, but they fled along with their dead and injured accomplices when authorities dispatched reinforcements to the security post in the town of Draban.

Ali Amin Gandapur, the Chief Minister in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in a statement paid tributes to the security forces who were killed and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on Pakistani Taliban, who often target security forces across the country, especially in the former tribal regions in the troubled northwest.

Security forces recently have been conducting intelligence-based operations against Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and have been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

The TTP is a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.

The attack on the security post came within 24 hours of two separate operations in which security forces shot and killed 19 insurgents in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Mianwali, a city in eastern Punjab province.