Pakistan Security Forces End 20-Hour Standoff with Militants in Northwest Pakistan

AP

Pakistani security forces ended a 20-hour standoff at a Kohat.

Pakistani security forces on Saturday ended a 20-hour standoff with militants who had barricaded themselves inside a police compound in north-western Pakistan, officials said.

The confrontation began on Friday after a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a mosque, while gunmen stormed the compound, killing 21 people and injuring 103 others.

The coordinated attack took place at a police facility in Kohat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan. Many of those killed and wounded were police officers and people attending prayers at the mosque.

Several militants took up positions inside the complex, triggering a firefight with security forces, police official Mohammad Sadiq said. The compound houses the police Special Branch intelligence unit, offices of the Counter Terrorism Department and accommodation for counterterrorism officers who have conducted operations against militants across the province in recent years.

Sadiq said the security operation ended after 20 hours. Local police said security forces were searching the compound and surrounding areas and had recovered the bodies of eight attackers.

Residents reported hearing bursts of gunfire from the compound as additional security personnel arrived before the operation was brought to an end.

Sadiq said two attackers detonated explosives inside the compound on Saturday morning, while police had killed six other assailants, excluding the suicide bombers. It was not immediately clear whether the explosions caused further casualties or how many militants remained inside the compound.

Friday’s suicide attack destroyed part of the outer wall of the police offices and severely damaged the mosque.

Funeral prayers for police officers killed in the assault were held on Friday evening at the police lines in Kohat. Their bodies, along with those of civilians killed in the attack, were later returned to their families for burial, Sadiq said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault. However, suspicion was expected to focus on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has intensified attacks on police and other security forces in recent years.

The TTP is separate from, but allied with, Afghanistan’s Taliban, which returned to power in 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban government in Kabul of sheltering TTP leaders and allowing militants to conduct cross-border attacks. The Afghan government denies the allegations.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack in separate statements and expressed condolences over the deaths. Zardari said eliminating militants was essential to Pakistan’s national security.

In 2023, a suicide bomber killed 101 people, mostly police officers, at a mosque inside a heavily fortified police compound in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Source: AP



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