TTP kills six police officers during ambush in northwest Pakistan

Pakistan Taliban attackers ambush a police automobile in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in one of many deadliest assaults in months.

Officers say it was the fourth such assault on legislation enforcement officers previously few weeks [File: Rizwan Tabassum/AFP]

Islamabad, Pakistan – At the least six policemen have been killed in an ambush as they patrolled in a automobile in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in one of many deadliest assaults in months.

Native officers instructed Al Jazeera the incident passed off on Wednesday morning when their automobile was fired upon within the metropolis of Lakki Marwat, about 200km (125 miles) from the provincial capital of Peshawar.

Police mentioned there have been no safety cameras put in within the space the place the incident passed off. An investigation has been launched.

In a press release, the banned armed group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), often known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed duty for the assault, including that its attackers made it again to secure havens.

The Pakistani Taliban, allied with the Afghan Taliban, has been waging an armed rise up in Pakistan for greater than a decade, calling for the stricter enforcement of Islamic legal guidelines, the discharge of their members from authorities custody and a lowered Pakistani navy presence in tribal-dominated areas.

In Could this 12 months, the group prolonged an indefinite ceasefire settlement with Islamabad, with the talks brokered by the Taliban authorities in Kabul.

However assaults by the Pakistani Taliban haven't stopped, primarily within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In a press release, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s workplace condemned the newest assault, calling the police a “vanguard in opposition to terrorism”.

“Allow us to make no mistake. Terrorism continues to be certainly one of Pakistan’s foremost issues. Our armed forces and police have valiantly fought the scourge,” he tweeted.

Allow us to make no mistake. Terrorism continues to be certainly one of Pakistan's foremost issues. Our armed forces & police have valiently fought the scourge. No phrases are sufficient to sentence terrorists' assault on a police van in Lakki Marwat. My ideas & prayers are with bereaved households.

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) November 16, 2022

Police officers instructed Al Jazeera it was the fourth such assault on legislation enforcement officers previously few weeks.

Based on information compiled by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Research (PIPS), an Islamabad-based analysis organisation, at the least 65 such assaults passed off in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this 12 months, killing at the least 98 folks and wounding 75.

Seven of these assaults passed off in Lakki Marwat, PIPS information exhibits.

PIPS director and safety analyst Amir Rana instructed Al Jazeera that whereas the federal government and the Pakistani Taliban have a ceasefire in place, the armed group portrays its assaults as defensive manoeuvres.

“Safety forces face this concern that each time they get complaints of abductions or extortion, they perform their operations which the TTP says is a transparent violation of the ceasefire settlement, after which they retaliate,” he mentioned.