Gunmen attacked police during an operation against illegal gold mining in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, leaving 10 officers and 18 militants dead, according to an official police statement.
Provincial police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said the officers were returning from a mine in the Gumbat area of Kohat district when militants opened fire. Twelve police personnel were wounded, and rescue workers were treating them.
A senior administrative official in Kohat said militants set two police vehicles on fire. Two other police vehicles and one private vehicle were unaccounted for.
In a separate operation in the Orakzai area of Kohat, another senior administrative official said 10 Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants were killed and a large quantity of weapons was recovered. The TTP claimed responsibility for a series of attacks across the country, including one on a police convoy in Gumbat.
Security forces say militancy in the province is intensifying and originates from Afghanistan, which the Taliban government denies. Relations between the two countries have been strained since the Taliban took power in 2021. Deadly border clashes in October last year led to a near-total border closure, and fighting resumed in February, when Pakistan declared "an open war" on its neighbor.
Earlier this month, militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed two police officers guarding a polio vaccination team near the Afghan border. The province was placed under emergency rule last month, which authorities said was a response to the provincial government's failure to act against militancy.
