A ROADSIDE bomb has killed three Pakistani police officers near the Afghan border, officials say.
The blast on Wednesday, in which two other officers were wounded, occurred in the country’s restive northwest region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The continuing cycle of violence in the area has recently sent tension spiralling between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Initial reports suggested the cause was an “improvised explosive device,” Ali Hamza, a police official in the nearby city of Dera Ismail Khan, told the AFP news agency.
No group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, but Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has been quick to blame the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has long carried out attacks in the province.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of providing the TTP with a safe haven since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.
The Taliban denies that its territory is used by the group.
The tensions spilled over into fierce clashes in October, with dozens of people killed in what was the worst fighting around the border since the Taliban took power.
A ceasefire has tentatively held since, but tension has continued to seethe.
Kabul has accused its neighbour of carrying out air strikes in its eastern provinces, while Pakistan has been hit with a surge of attacks.
A suicide bombing at an Islamabad court complex that killed 12 people and an attack on a paramilitary headquarters in Peshawar have kept suspicion bubbling in Pakistan, with authorities pointing at the TTP and arresting four members of an Afghan cell after the Islamabad bombing.
On Tuesday, gunmen killed a local administrator and two officers in the city of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, wounding three others, police officer Kamal Khan told the AFP news agency.
A faction of the TTP claimed responsibility for the attack, the agency reported.
As news of Wednesday’s attack came, the Reuters news agency reported that Kabul and Islamabad had held new peace talks in Saudi Arabia.
The parties reportedly agreed to maintain the ceasefire, with one Afghan official suggesting that Kabul is open to further meetings in pursuit of a positive outcome.
The two sides signed a ceasefire in Doha in October, but a second round of negotiations in Istanbul last month ended without any long-term deal being reached.