The TTP later claimed the attack in a statement and identified the assailant who was killed by the police. (file)
Quetta:
Four security officers were killed in a shootout in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Sunday that was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, officials said.
About a dozen gunmen attacked policemen and paramilitary Frontier Constabulary officers at a highway checkpoint in Zhob district, following a two-hour gunfight.
“Four security officials, including three policemen and a Frontier Corps officer, were killed in the attack. A suspected attacker has also been killed, but he has not yet been identified,” Zhob commissioner Saeed Umrani told AFP.
Officials said three others were injured.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) later claimed the attack in a statement and identified the attacker who was killed by police.
The TTP is different from the Taliban of Afghanistan but shares a similar ideology.
Attacks, mostly targeting security forces, have been on the rise again since the Afghan Taliban took over Kabul in 2021 and the end of a months-long ceasefire between the TTP and Islamabad in November last year.
Attacks have been a regular occurrence in areas adjacent to Afghanistan and Islamabad alleges that some are being planned on Afghan soil.
In April, four policemen were killed in Kuchlak, Balochistan, in an encounter with terrorists whom the police identified as the Pakistani Taliban.
In January, a suicide bomber linked to the TTP blew himself up at a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing more than 80 officers.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV Staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)