An overnight militant attack on a police post in northwestern Pakistan left 11 officers dead and 15 militants killed in a subsequent gunbattle, authorities reported Thursday. The assault targeted the Khazina police post in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which shares a border with Afghanistan.
The militants attacked the police post using heavy weapons. Reinforcements dispatched to the scene were ambushed en route, disabling an armored personnel carrier before officers engaged in a fight back. The gunbattle lasted for about an hour, according to police.
Diyar Khan, a senior police officer who led the reinforcements, was among those killed, a provincial police statement confirmed. More than two dozen police officers sustained injuries during the attack.
No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the raid. However, suspicion is expected to fall on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban. The TTP has intensified its attacks on Pakistani security forces in the region in recent months.
Pakistan has experienced a significant increase in militant violence in recent years, with much of it attributed to the TTP. This group is a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, which regained control of Afghanistan in 2021. Islamabad has frequently accused the Afghan Taliban government of harboring TTP militants, an allegation Kabul denies.