By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: An improvised explosive device ripped through a police patrol vehicle in a remote tribal area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, killing seven officers including a station house officer and leaving authorities scrambling to hunt down the attackers in a region increasingly gripped by militant violence.
The blast struck a squad from the Shadikhel police station as it conducted a routine patrol along the Shahdikhel-Mastikhel road in the Bettani subdivision of Lakki Marwat district, according to Qudratullah, spokesman for the district police chief. Terrorists had planted the device specifically to target law enforcement personnel, he said. Six officers — the station house officer and five constables — died at the scene. A seventh policeman was rushed to Insaafuddin Hospital but succumbed to his wounds during treatment.
The bodies of the dead and the sole injured officer were transported to a local hospital immediately after the explosion. A large contingent of police later cordoned off the area and launched a search operation for those responsible. The attack occurred a day after police, counterterrorism forces and pro-government militias conducted a joint raid in the same district that killed two suspected militants and arrested four others, officials said.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has recorded a sharp escalation in violence over the past year. The Centre for Research and Security Studies’ Annual Security Report 2025 documented a rise in provincial fatalities from 1,620 in 2024 to 2,331 last year — an absolute increase of 711 deaths that accounted for more than 82 percent of the national uptick and reflected a nearly 44 percent year-on-year surge in attacks within the province.
The latest incident fits a grim pattern. Only last month, nine police personnel, including a deputy superintendent, were killed in separate terrorist strikes in Punjab’s Bhakkar district and in Kohat and Wana areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Days earlier, three members of the Federal Constabulary died in an attack in Karak.
Pakistani officials link the broader surge to the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in 2021, which they say has allowed Pakistani Taliban militants and other groups to use Afghan soil as a launchpad for cross-border raids. Islamabad has repeatedly accused Kabul of failing to curb these outfits — a charge Afghan officials deny.
In response, Pakistan has escalated its own operations. Under “Operation Ghazab lil-Haq,” security forces have killed at least 641 Afghan Taliban militants, wounded 855, destroyed 243 checkposts, captured 42 militants and eliminated 219 tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces. Before that campaign, Pakistani airstrikes targeted seven terrorist camps and hideouts in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar, Paktika and Khost provinces belonging to groups Islamabad identifies as Fitna al Khawarij and its affiliates as well as the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch. Those strikes killed more than 80 militants.
Tensions boiled over in October 2025 when Afghan Taliban fighters and allied militants launched unprovoked assaults on Pakistani border posts, sparking clashes that left more than 200 Taliban and affiliated fighters dead and 23 Pakistani soldiers killed. Despite multiple rounds of diplomatic talks, the two neighbors have failed to reach any agreement, largely because of the Afghan Taliban regime’s reluctance to act against terrorist sanctuaries. The Lakki Marwat blast also came amid reports of an attempted drone strike by Afghan Taliban forces in the nearby Kohat district, underscoring the persistent cross-border dimensions of the conflict.
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