Pakistan Taliban kill six police officers in ambush

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Six police officers were killed in an ambush in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, an assault claimed by the South Asian nation’s homegrown Taliban.

The Pakistan Taliban share a common lineage with the Afghan Taliban and have staged an increasing number of strikes in the year since Kabul fell into the hands of the hardline Islamists in August 2021.

Gunmen with automatic rifles launched an attack at about 7 a.m. (10 a.m. in Manila) on a police vehicle patrolling the village of Shahab Khel, 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Afghan border.

“All the six policemen were killed” under fire from both sides, Tariqullah Khan, a district official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The death toll was confirmed by a second police official.

The Pakistan Taliban — known locally as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — said the police were “coming for a raid” when they were gunned down.

It said in a statement to AFP its own fighters “managed to reach their base safely” after looting weapons and ammunition.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered his condolences and said on Twitter that “terrorism continues to be one of Pakistan’s foremost problems.”

The TTP were at the height of their power in Pakistan between 2007 and 2009, when they held sway over the Swat valley, just 135 km (85 miles) north of the capital Islamabad.

They were pushed into Afghanistan by an army offensive after perpetrating a barbaric schoolhouse bombing that killed nearly 150 students in 2014.

United States-led forces hunted Taliban of all stripes in Afghanistan during their two-decade occupation following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Analysts say the TTP have found a vital foothold and shelter there since the chaotic US departure and the Afghan Taliban’s return to power.