[ad_1]
The attack in northwestern Pakistan came after a month-long ceasefire between the armed group and the government ended.
A Pakistani Taliban gunman has killed a police officer guarding a polio vaccination group in northwestern Pakistan in the first attack since one ended. a month-long ceasefire with the government.
Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban or TTP, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack and wounded another officer.
The attack took place in the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the second day of the five-day anti-polio campaign to vaccinate 6.5 million children in the province, according to Aimal Khan vaccination campaign spokesperson.
It is the latest violence to highlight Pakistan’s vaccination efforts for polio, one of the only two countries in the world where endemic neurodegenerative disease remains endemic.
Polio groups and the police assigned to protect them are often the target of armed groups who claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Police chief Sajjad Ahmed told The Associated Press that two shots on a motorcycle were fired on a police team escorting anti-polio vaccines in the Chaddarah area.
An officer was killed and a Frontier Constabulary officer was seriously injured while members of the vaccination team were unharmed.
Although the Pakistani Taliban seized power in August as a separate entity from the Afghan Taliban, the Afghan Taliban government helped ease the ceasefire between Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government and the TTP.
Peace talks between the government and the TTP, which began last month, government spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said a ceasefire could be extended at the time if talks continued.
Security analysts have expressed skepticism about the peace talks process, citing previous agreements between the TTP or its allies and the Pakistani government.
Since its inception in 2007, the TTP has carried out some of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani soil, targeting political, civilian and security forces, including suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices and targeted killings.
[ad_2]
Source link
