A POWERFUL roadside bomb struck a police vehicle in the country’s northwest near the Afghan border, killing a city police chief and two junior officers, officials said.
The bombing took place Friday in the city of Hangu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as the officers were heading to a police station that had been attacked less than an hour earlier, local police chief Adam Khan said.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and blamed them on the Pakistani Taliban, which is a separate group and a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban, which returned to power in Kabul in August 2021.
The government accuses Kabul of allowing Pakistani Taliban militants based in Afghanistan to carry out cross-border attacks. Kabul denies the charge, saying it does not allow its territory to be used against other countries.
Also on Friday, security forces raided a hideout in the northwestern Tank district and killed eight Pakistani Taliban militants.
The latest violence came a day before Pakistan and Afghanistan are scheduled to hold a second round of peace talks in Istanbul, following a meeting in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Oct 19. — AP
