Militant attacks on Pakistani police kill 5 as government hunt for insurgents displaces thousands
Militant attacks on Pakistani police kill 5 as government hunt for insurgents displaces thousands
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A series of attacks against Pakistani police by militants left five officers dead and eight wounded in a region where a government operation against insurgents has displaced 100,000 people, officials said.
There were four attacks with three resulting in officer casualties Thursday, police said.
Most died or were injured in a single attack in the Upper Dir district when armed men ambushed a police van early Thursday. Three officers died and seven were injured during the routine patrol, police official Ismail Khan said.
In the Peshawar suburb of Hassan Khel, armed men opened fire on a police station with automatic weapons. One officer died and another was wounded in an exchange of fire, Peshawar Capital City Police Officer Qasim Ali Khan said.
Two other overnight attacks came at police checkpoints in the Lajbok area of the Lower Dir district, where a police constable was killed, and in the Bannu district, where there were no casualties reported.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the assaults and it was not immediately known if they were connected.
Authorities have stepped up security across the country on the country’s Independence Day, which was celebrated Thursday. The attacks on police coincided with a security operation to fight militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Bajaur district. There was no formal announcement of the offensive’s launch in Bajaur, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban.
Local government administrator Saeed Ullah said it was not a large-scale operation and only insurgent hideouts were targeted to avoid hurting or killing civilians, but the operation has displaced at least 100,000 people and there have been civilian casualties, including deaths.
On Thursday, hundreds of people carried black flags and staged a sit-in to protest the killing of a mother and her two children in the district’s Inayat Kili area, who died when a mortar struck their home.
Authorities are registering displaced families from the Mamund area and setting up camps in public schools and sports complexes. People also have received food and relief packages, Bajaur government official Saeed Khan said.
Sitting at a camp for displaced people in Khar, a main city in the Bajur district, Abid Ullah asked the government to quickly finish the operation so he could return home with his family.
Shah Mehmood, a resident from the town of Mamund, said that when the operation began, “the war planes came and they were flying above our heads.”
Mehmood said he left with with his family members for their safety and still had bitter memories of a similar 2009 military operation that displaced hundreds of thousands in Bajur.
Between 500 and 800 militants are hiding in Bajaur, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Authorities have not shared details of troop or militant casualties in the operation.
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Anwarullah Khan in Khar, Pakistan, and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed.
By RIAZ KHAN
Associated Press
