A series of attacks against Pakistani police by militants left five officers dead, while eight others sustained varying degrees of injuries in the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The attacks, which targeted police stations, checkpoints, and patrols across seven districts bordering Afghanistan, occurred overnight as the nation of 240 million marked its 78th Independence Day.
According to police reports, three officers were killed and one injured in a single attack in the Upper Dir district, where armed men ambushed a police van during a routine patrol early Thursday.
In the Peshawar suburb of Hassan Khel, one officer was killed and another injured when gunmen opened fire on a police station with automatic weapons. A police constable also died in a separate overnight attack in the Lajbok area of the Lower Dir district.
The attacks coincided with a security operation targeting militants in the province’s Bajaur district.
Local government administrator Saeed Ullah said the operation was not large-scale and was focused on insurgent hideouts to minimize civilian harm. However, the offensive has displaced at least 100,000 people, and there have been civilian casualties, including deaths.
On Thursday, hundreds of residents carried black flags and staged a sit-in protest after a mother and her two children were killed by a mortar that struck their home in Bajaur’s Inayat Kili area.
Authorities are registering displaced families from the Mamund area and setting up temporary shelters in public schools and sports complexes. Relief supplies, including food packages, have been distributed, according to Bajaur official Saeed Khan.
An estimated 500 to 800 militants are believed to be hiding in Bajaur, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing lack of authorization to speak to the media.
The recent spike in militant attacks has placed further strain on the country’s overstretched and under-equipped police force, which serves as the frontline in the fight against insurgents.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a Pakistani Islamist militant group linked to the Afghan Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The TTP, an umbrella organization of several Sunni Islamist factions, has waged an insurgency against the Pakistani state since 2007, seeking to impose its version of Islamic law.
Attacks have intensified since the TTP ended a ceasefire with the government in late 2022.
In 2024, Islamist militants carried out 335 attacks across Pakistan, resulting in 520 deaths, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an independent research organization.
Pakistan claims the militants operate from neighboring Afghanistan, where they train fighters and plan attacks, an allegation Kabul has denied.
