Islamist militants dressed as women kill 4 in Pakistan

BANNU – Islamist militants dressed as women in burkas stormed a northwestern Pakistani district police office on Monday, killing three policemen and a civilian before police shot and killed all five attackers.
Provincial police chief Akhtar Hayat said the attack on the complex, which houses both the district police headquarters and a residential complex, lasted for hours before the potential suicide bombers were killed.
The Pakistani Taliban – also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan – in a statement claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in Bannu around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the restive North Waziristan tribal region on the Pakistani-Afghanistan border.
Officers had gathered for the funeral of a colleague killed a day earlier in a militant attack when the raid began.
“Four of the militants were wearing suicide vests, but they were neutralised before they could detonate them. The police base has been fully cleared,” said senior police official in the district Imran Shahid.
He said four police officers were killed and five militants.
“The five militants, disguised as women wearing burkas, reached the gate of the police [base] before launching their attack,” provincial minister Pakhtoon Yar Khan, who is from the district, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Islamabad has witnessed a surge in militancy since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021 and accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out Pakistani Taliban members preparing attacks from their soil.
Bannu is about 350 km (217 miles) from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, which is under strict security lockdown for the arrival of Chinese Premier Li Qiang ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
While the capital is generally regarded as safe, other areas in Pakistan have been hit by numerous attacks in the run-up to the conference.
Two Chinese engineers were killed in a bombing in southern Karachi city last weekend and 20 coal miners shot dead by heavily armed men in southwestern Balochistan on Friday.
The Pakistani Taliban is considered the largest threat to Islamabad and is active in the northwest border regions.