Islamist militants dressed as women kill 4, including 3 policemen, in Pakistan

Pakistani Taliban claimed attack in which militants wearing suicide vests stormed remote police base. Police shot dead all 5 attackers

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An ambulance drives past a checkpoint leading to the site where Pakistani Taliban militants attacked police officers in Bannu, Pakistan on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:39am, 15 Oct 2024

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 40km (25 miles) from the restive North Waziristan tribal region on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Pakistani security officials stand guard in Bannu, Pakistan on Monday following an attack on police. Photo: EPA-EFE

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.