3 police officers killed, 34 injured in twin attacks in NW Pakistan

In Pakistan, at least three police personnel were killed and 34 injured on Wednesday in two separate terror attacks in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said. Security forces foiled a suicide attack on the Miryan Police Station in Bannu district after intercepting and destroying an explosives-laden vehicle before it could reach its target, officials said. Four attackers were killed during the exchange of fire.
The first attack occurred in the district of Upper Dir in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where militants ambushed a security convoy, killing three police officers and wounding 15 others, local police official Ibrahim Khan said. He said security forces returned fire and the exchange was ongoing.
Hours later, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a police station in the city of Bannu, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, wounding at least five police officers, police said. The blast damaged part of the station, but no fatalities were immediately reported. No group immediately claimed responsibility for either attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Pakistan has accused the group of operating from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, a charge both the TTP and the Taliban-led government in Kabul deny.