Ten police officers and 18 fighters died on Wednesday during an attack in northwestern Pakistan. Gunmen ambushed police personnel who were conducting an operation against illegal gold mining in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The officers were returning from a mine in the Gumbat area of Kohat district when armed men opened fire on their convoy, provincial police said. The violence left 12 other police personnel wounded.
A senior administrative official in Kohat said fighters torched two police vehicles during the assault. Two other police vehicles and one private vehicle went missing.
Hours after the clash, the Pakistani Taliban issued a statement claiming responsibility. The group is formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
A local emergency service spokesman confirmed the firing incident in Kohat district. Rescue workers treated a dozen wounded officers at the DHQ Hospital in Kohat.
In a separate operation in the same district, a senior administrative official in the Orakzai area stated that 10 TTP fighters were killed. Security forces also recovered a large quantity of weapons from these fighters during the sweep.
Security forces face intensifying violence in the border province, which authorities say comes from Afghanistan. The Taliban government in Kabul consistently rejects this accusation.
The TTP has increased attacks on security forces in the region over recent months. Pakistan has experienced a general surge in violence in recent years, with officials blaming much of it on the armed group.
While the TTP operates as a separate entity, it is closely allied with the Afghan Taliban. That faction returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021.
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have been fraught since the Afghan Taliban took control. Ties worsened after deadly border clashes led to a near-total closure of the frontier.
Pakistan frequently accuses the Afghan administration of sheltering TTP fighters, an allegation that Kabul denies. United Nations mission figures indicate that hundreds of civilians have been killed in fighting between the two countries over the past year.
