Militants ambush Pakistan police station killing 4 cops
Islamabad, Dec 18 (EFE).- Militants attacked a police station in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province early Sunday morning killing four policemen and injuring another four, according to police sources.
More than 60 policemen, who were on duty, fought the militants for nearly an hour at the Burgi police station in Lakki Marwat district.
“After midnight unknown terrorists attacked the police station with rocket launchers, hand grenade and other heavy weapons,” Shahid Hameed, a spokesman for the police station, told Efe.
The official said that after the attack, the terrorists fled the scene taking advantage of the darkness.
A police search operation working with the security forces was launched in the area.
“As a result of the attack four policemen including one head constable were martyred and four others were injured,” Hameed added.
Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned the attack.
In a statement the premier paid tribute to the martyrs and also expressed solidarity with the bereaved families.
“The terrorists are an open enemy of Pakistan and the Pakistani nation,” he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, however, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban, have increased terrorist activities in the province recently.
Since its formation, the TTP has carried out a brutal campaign of terror attacks across the country, killing thousands of people, including the attempted assassination of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai in 2012.
The attacks began to decline in 2014, but since the Afghan Taliban rose to power in neighboring Afghanistan in August last year, Pakistan has seen a rise in TTP terror activities.
The TTP and the Pakistani government tried to kickstart peace talks with the mediation of the Afghan Taliban, but negotiations failed when a ceasefire, which had been agreed in July, came to end in November.
The National Anti-Terrorism Authority (NACTA) recently admitted that the TTP had gained considerable ground.
At least two people, including a soldier, were killed and nine civilians wounded after a suicide blast on November 19 in the Waziristan tribal district, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan.
Another attack on November 30 left two dead and 28 injured when a Taliban suicide bomber rammed a car into a police truck carrying members of the security forces to protect polio vaccination teams in Balochistan.
Both attacks were claimed by the TTP. EFE
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