Islamabad, Jul 20 (EFE).- Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a police compound in Bara town of tribal Khyber district killing one policeman and injuring 10 others, including four officers, police said Thursday.
Akhtar Hayat, police chief for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Bara is located, said the two attackers tried to enter the police compound but guards on duty stopped them by opening fire.
“One attacker tried to enter the building from the front gate and the other from the back,” Hayat said during a media briefing in the provincial capital of Peshawar.
“During the exchange of fire between the police and the attackers, one officer named Tayyab Afridi was killed while 10 other people including four officers were injured,” the police chief added.
He said the building and the gate of the compound have been damaged due to the explosion by the terrorists.
The country’s ambulance service agency, Rescue 1122, said in a statement that an explosion in the compound, where the police station is also located, caused the roof of the building to collapse.
Heavy machinery has been dispatched to the spot and rescue operations are underway to rescue those trapped under the debris of the building, it added.
Last night, two policemen were killed and two others were injured in firing on policemen stationed at the gate of Regi police station in Peshawar.
In a separate incident, eight security forces personnel were injured as a result of a suicide attack on their vehicle in Peshawar’s upscale Hayatabad neighborhood.
Pakistan has seen a surge in terrorism-related incidents since the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2021, coinciding with the US pullout from the country.
Earlier this month, as many as 12 soldiers of the Pakistan army were killed in two attacks on the military in the Zhob and Sui areas of Balochistan, which was the military’s highest single-day death toll from terrorist attacks reported this year.
Pakistan claims Afghan soil is being used by the Pakistani Taliban or the TTP to carry out attacks on their territory.
Two days after the Zhob and Sui attacks, the military expressed “serious concerns” about the “safe havens and liberty of action available” to the TTP in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has rejected Pakistan’s claims saying the interim government of Afghan Taliban does not shelter the TTP or allow it to operate from Afghanistan. EFE
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