TTP claims responsibility for the Bajaur attack, which killed six and injured ten

According to TRT World, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), better known as the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb explosion that targeted a police van in Bajaur.

According to reports, the attack killed at least six officers and injured ten more in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region.

On Monday, an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded near the police station that was assigned to protect workers in an anti-polio immunization program.

The blast took place in Mamond, a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the Afghan border, according to police spokesman Kashif Zulfiquar.

He stated that some of the wounded officers were in critical condition at a federal hospital. TRT reported that anti-polio activities in Pakistan are frequently marred by bloodshed, with terrorists frequently targeting polio personnel and police deployed to guard them, mistakenly claiming that vaccination campaigns are a Western scheme to sterilize youngsters.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit for the strike, which occurred only hours after officials launched the first anti-polio campaign of the year.

Read More: Blast hits police vehicle in Tehsil Mamond, Bajaur

The Pakistani Taliban, commonly known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, is a different group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO soldiers were preparing to leave the nation after 20 years of war.

Many TTP officials and militants have sought refuge in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover, emboldening the TTP to launch additional attacks against government troops. It has strained Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban administration in Kabul, which refuses to allow TTP to commit strikes in Pakistan from its soil.