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Taliban attack on Pakistani police station leaves three officers dead

Police officials and relatives attend the funeral ceremony for an officer killed during an attack by Taliban militants Saturday in Peshawar, Pakistan. Photo by Arshad Arbab/EPE-EFE
Police officials and relatives attend the funeral ceremony for an officer killed during an attack by Taliban militants Saturday in Peshawar, Pakistan. Photo by Arshad Arbab/EPE-EFE

Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Three police officers are dead after a late night attack by Taliban militants on a police station on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, authorities said Saturday.

Police called the attack an ambush, carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan group around midnight Saturday.

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The TPP group later claimed responsibility for the attack, which left a senior police officer among the dead.

Officials say six or seven gunmen attacked the police station in Peshawar, the provincial capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which shares a border with Afghanistan and has recently been under fire from the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban.

"A group of terrorists attacked Sarband police station at midnight from different sides," Kashif Aftab Abbasi, a senior police officer told the Anadolu news agency

The attackers used grenades, sniper rifles, automatic weapons and grenades in the assault, which he said was "coordinated from multiple directions," he said.

Following the attack, the Taliban group claimed it had killed four police officers and seized weapons and ammunition.

Attacks launched from Afghanistan have picked up since the Taliban returned to power in that country in August 2021.

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The TPP was formed in 2007 and has operated along the Afghan-Pakistani border since then. It shares a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and assisted them between 2001 and 2021 during U.S. military occupation.

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