Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan kills four police officers, injures six others

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan members have killed four police officers by targeting a police vehicle with a roadside bomb and wounded six in an attack on a police station in northwest Pakistan.

The bomb killed four officers early on Thursday in a police vehicle carrying reinforcements sent to respond to the attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Six officers were wounded in the attack at the police station.

Pakistani police officer Ashfaq Khan said a search was underway for the militant suspects who attacked the police station in Lakki Marwat and later targeted the police vehicle with a bomb.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.

READ MORE: Explained: Pakistan's Taliban insurgency and the deadly cycle of violence

The group known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP is separate but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. 

There has been an uptick in attacks in Pakistan after the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan ended a cease-fire with the government of Pakistan.

TTP has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 when US and NATO troops were leaving the country after 20 years of war.

Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuaries in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.

Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades but there has been an uptick since November, when the TTP ended a months-long Afghan Taliban-brokered cease-fire with the government of Pakistan.

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