By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: Militants ambushed a security convoy in Pakistan’s northwest on Wednesday, and hours later a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a police station in a nearby city, leaving at least three police officers dead and 20 wounded in the latest sign that violence is intensifying along the border with Afghanistan.
The first attack unfolded in Upper Dir, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where gunmen ambushed a security convoy, killing three police officers and wounding 15 others, according to Ibrahim Khan, a local police official. Khan said security forces returned fire and that the exchange of gunfire was continuing as of Wednesday. He did not say whether any militants had been killed or wounded in the clash.
Hours later, roughly 100 miles to the south in the city of Bannu, a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into Miryan Police Station, touching off a powerful blast that wounded at least five officers and damaged part of the building. No fatalities from the Bannu attack were immediately reported.
Muhammad Furqan Bilal, the Bannu district police officer, confirmed the assault, and hospital officials confirmed the toll of the wounded.
The blast triggered a prolonged gun battle. Police said the explosion set off a heavy exchange of fire between officers and the attackers that continued for a considerable stretch of time, prompting authorities to tighten security across the area. Additional police units were dispatched to the scene, and members of a local Police Peace Committee, a citizen group that works with law enforcement in the region, also arrived to assist.
Residents said the blast could be heard from a considerable distance and that the explosion damaged not only the police station but nearby homes as well.
Before storming the station, the attackers detonated explosives on a bridge that had already been damaged, severing the route into the area in an apparent attempt to delay reinforcements and rescue crews from reaching the scene. Once the attack was underway, residents joined the effort to rescue the wounded.
No group had claimed responsibility for either attack as of Wednesday evening, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, a militant faction formally known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The group is separate from, but closely allied with, the Taliban administration that governs neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistani officials have long accused the TTP of directing attacks from havens inside Afghan territory — an allegation both the TTP and the Taliban government in Kabul have repeatedly denied.
Wednesday’s violence was the latest in a string of attacks to strike Bannu in recent months. In April, a suicide car bombing at the district’s Domel Police Station killed at least five civilians and wounded 13 others, including one police officer. The district, along with the surrounding region, has seen repeated assaults on both civilians and security forces, part of a broader escalation that has prompted police to launch targeted operations aimed at dismantling militant networks operating in nearby localities.
The uptick in Bannu is part of a sharper rise in violence across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over the past year. According to the Centre for Research and Security Studies’ Annual Security Report 2025, fatalities tied to militant violence in the province climbed from 1,620 in 2024 to 2,331 last year — a jump that underscores how thoroughly the province bordering Afghanistan has become the epicenter of Pakistan’s renewed conflict with militant groups.
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