Terrorists disguised as Muslim women stormed a regional police headquarters in northwest Pakistan, killing four people and triggering a heavy gunfight on the eve of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
Five gunmen wearing suicide vests under burqas carried out the attack in the garrison city of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday.
The terrorists, armed with sophisticated weapons, rocket launchers and hand grenades, arrived at the Iqbal Shaheed Police Lines in a rickshaw and on a motorcycle and opened indiscriminate fire at policemen manning the gate, Regional Police Officer Imran Shahid said. All five of them as well as four police officers were killed in the ensuing gunfight that lasted nearly six hours, Dawn newspaper reported.
Graphic pictures circulating online showed half a dozen dead bodies lying on ground and videos purported to show intense firing and explosions in the area.
The attack occurred just hours after funeral prayers were offered for head constable Shaista Khan, who had been killed in an attack earlier in the day.
This is the second such attack this year in Bannu, which neighbours the restive North Waziristan district near the border with Afghanistan.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, simply known as Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. The proscribed group, a separate entity from the Taliban governing Afghanistan, has long been a major security challenge to Islamabad. Many leaders and fighters of the Pakistani Taliban have reportedly found refuge in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in 2021.
The Bannu attack is the latest in a spate of terror strikes in Pakistan ahead of the SCO summit. Top foreign leaders, delegates and foreign journalists have gathered in Islamabad for policy deliberations on 15 and 16 October. Terrorism is one of the key issues on the agenda.
Terrorists gunned down 21 coal miners and wounded over half a dozen in the restive Balochistan province last week. The carnage lasted 30 minutes before the attackers “escaped into the night,” police said, adding that they were armed with hand grenades and rocket launchers.
A few days earlier, on 6 October, a suicide bomber had killed two Chinese workers outside the Karachi airport and injured at least eight Pakistani security officials.
The capital Islamabad was placed under a security lockdown and a public holiday was announced for three days as the threat alert remained high in the host nation.
Chinese premier Li Qiang was the most prominent leader to arrive on Monday for the summit of the transregional grouping led by Beijing.
