Pakistan: Seven police personnel, eight terrorists dead in Hangu police checkpoint attack; several injured

At least seven police officers and eight alleged "terrorists" died in a militant attack late Wednesday on a checkpoint in northern Pakistan, local media reported.

Terrorists attacked the Khazina Banda police checkpost in the Hangu district of Pakistan's northern border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), District Police Officer (DPO) Tariq Habib was quoted by Geo News as saying on Wednesday.

An additional 22 police personnel were injured, Habib said, with a clearance operation launched in the area.

He further claimed that eight terrorists were also killed while six others were injured in retaliatory fire.

According to Geo News, Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terror activities, particularly in its KP and Balochistan provinces, since 2021, when the Afghan Taliban came into power.

The militant attack on Wednesday came just days after unidentified militants attacked another checkpoint in the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The province borders Afghanistan and has been gripped by a growing violent campaign by the Islamist Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group.

On Friday, militants rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a security check post, killing 15 people including soldiers, police and government personnel.

Pakistan has previously blamed the increase in attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southern border province of Balochistan on militancy emanating from Afghanistan, whose Taliban government denies Afghan involvement.

The accusations have sparked a bitter rift and armed conflict between the neighbouring countries, and Pakistan has carried out deadly airstrikes it says targets militants on Afghan soil.

The Taliban government and the United Nations said dozens of civilians were killed in the latest Pakistani strikes on eastern Afghanistan in June.

A report by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), as cited by Geo News, showed KP and Balochistan were the epicentres of violence, with the former recording as the worst hit region, during the second quarter of 2026.

The two provinces accounted for almost 96 percent of all violence-linked fatalities, with over 61 percent (475) recorded in KP and 34 percent (265) in Balochistan, according to the report.

KP recorded the highest number of violent incidents in the second quarter, with 151 cases (57 percent), followed by Balochistan with 94 incidents (35 percent), accounting for the majority of reported violence, the report added.

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