PESHAWAR: Heavily armed militants attacked an oil and gas company in Pakistan‘s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two policemen and injuring three others, police said. The attack occurred late on Tuesday night at the Alhaj Oil and Gas Company in the Dera Ismail Khan district bordering the South Waziristan tribal district.
Following the shootout, two policemen were killed and three injured.
Police contingents have reached the site and a combing operation was launched in the area to capture the fleeing attackers.
The injured were admitted to the district’s Combined Military Hospital.
The attack comes days after a Pakistan Army officer and three soldiers were killed during an intense exchange of fire with militants in the Tirah area of the province.
Pakistan has been facing a rise in violence in the wake of the Taliban seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
According to a Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (Picss) report issued in September, Pakistan suffered 99 attacks in August, the highest number in a single month since November 2014. The number of militant attacks in August was the highest tally for monthly strikes in almost nine years.
The Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), a think tank, in a report released in October, noted that the security forces lost at least 386 personnel in the first nine months of 2023, marking an eight-year high.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were the primary centres of violence, accounting for nearly 94 per cent of all fatalities and 89 per cent of attacks (including incidents of terrorism and security forces operations) recorded during this period.