Bomb kills three Pakistani police officers close to Afghan border

Three Pakistani police officers were killed near the Afghan border by a roadside bomb, according to officials.

Two other officers were hurt in the explosion that took place on Wednesday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a restive area of the country. Recently, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been at a high tension due to the region’s ongoing cycle of violence.

According to initial reports, the cause was an “improvised explosive device,” according to police official Ali Hamza in Dera Ismail Khan, a policeman from nearby Dera.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday, but Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has been quick to blame Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a province-based organization that has long carried out attacks there.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, Islamabad claims that this is where the TTP has a safe haven. ​​

The Taliban denies that the organization uses its territory.

Spillover

In October, dozens of people were killed in the worst fighting to occur along the border since the Taliban took control, leading to fierce clashes.

Since then, there has only been a tentative ceasefire, but tension has persisted.

Pakistan has experienced a rise in attacks while Kabul has accused its neighbor of carrying out air strikes in its eastern provinces.

Following the Islamabad court complex suicide bombing that left 12 people dead and the attack on a paramilitary headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan’s authorities arrested four members of an Afghan cell and rehashed the TTP.

Three people were hurt in the city of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday when two gunmen killed a local administrator and two policemen, according to police officer Kamal Khan, according to the AFP news agency.

According to the report, a TTP faction claimed responsibility for the attack.

new talks’ reports

The Reuters news agency reported that Saudi Arabia’s Kabul and Islamabad had begun new peace talks.

According to reports, the parties agreed to keep the ceasefire, and an Afghan official suggested that Kabul would host additional meetings to try to reach avertable result.

A second round of negotiations in Istanbul last month ended without a long-term agreement after the two parties signed a ceasefire in Doha in October.