Revenge for Kabul airstrike suspected as Pak police facility attack leaves 7 officers dead in Khyber

Reports of another terrible terror attack are coming from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where government forces are repeatedly being engaged by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group in recent days. In the latest incident, TTP fighters attacked a police training centre in Dera Ismail Khan district, reportedly killing at least seven policemen.

It was in Dera Ismail Khan district that a Pakistan Army Major had died during an intelligence-based anti-TTP operation a few days ago. According to reports, TTP launched the deadly suicide attack on the police training centre in response to the Pakistan Air Force’s raid targeting its leadership in Kabul yesterday.

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A TTP suicide bomber targeted the walls of the training centre before more fighters opened fire, media reports said. At least six militants were killed in the gun battle that followed, but several policemen were injured apart from the seven who died, the reports added.

TTP earlier claimed that its fighters forced their way into the facility by detonating an explosive-laden vehicle near the gates but later retracted, Arab News PK reported. While two policemen were crushed under the compound wall that collapsed in the explosion, others were killed in the gunfight, top police sources reportedly told Arab News.

There were about 200 trainees and staff at the facility at the time of the attack, and all of them were safely evacuated, the news report said. All militants involved in the attack were neutralised and the gun battle was over, officials confirmed.

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Islamabad has often claimed that the banned TTP is an “Indian proxy” which was using Afghan soil to target Pakistan. At a time the foreign minister of Afghanistan met with his counterpart in New Delhi, Pakistan scrambled fighter jets to target multiple positions in Kabul. This was seen as a message to India and Afghanistan.