Islamabad, May 23 (EFE).- At least four police officers and two security guards were killed on Tuesday after an armed group stormed an oil and natural gas production facility in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A group of more than 50 insurgents attacked facilities run by MOL Pakistan Oil and Gas Company, a unit of Hungarian firm MOL, in the Mainji Khel area near the Afghan border.
“More than 50 terrorists attacked two wells of the company between Monday and Tuesday night killing four Frontier Constabulary personnel and two other guards of a private company,” Asad Ullah, a police official in Hangu told EFE.
The official added that there was an exchange of gunfire between police personnel in the area and insurgents that lasted for more than two hours.
“After the extended firing, the terrorists fled the area by taking advantage of the darkness towards adjoining tribal North Waziristan,” added Ullah.
The Hungarian company, engaged in the extraction of oil and natural gas in Pakistan since 1999, also has a contract for the extraction of natural resources in Hangu’s Tall Tehsil area and in some areas of the Kohat and Karrak districts, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes amid an increase in terrorist activities in the country since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, mostly perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban, who are ideologically aligned but independent of their Afghan counterparts.
The situation deteriorated further since December last year, when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), announced the end of the ceasefire reached a month earlier with Islamabad, accusing it of breaching its commitments in peace negotiations.
According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, January was the deadliest month in terms of insurgency since July 2018, with at least 134 dead and 254 injured in 44 attacks. EFE
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