Ten police officers, 18 fighters killed in deadly Kohat district clash in northwest Pakistan

Police in northwest Pakistan say 10 officers and 18 fighters were killed in a clash in Kohat district after gunmen opened fire on personnel returning from an operation against illegal gold mining. The violence took place in the Gumbat area of Kohat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and left 12 police personnel wounded, according to a provincial police statement. Authorities said the attack unfolded on Wednesday and involved armed men targeting officers as they were heading back from the mine area.

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A senior administrative official in Kohat said fighters set two police vehicles on fire during the assault. The same official said two other police vehicles and one private vehicle were missing after the incident. Hours later, the Pakistan Taliban issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, adding a further layer of significance to an already deadly confrontation.

A spokesman for a local emergency service had earlier described the incident as a firing exchange involving police personnel and said rescue workers were treating a dozen wounded officers. Officials in a separate operation in the Orakzai area of Kohat said 10 fighters belonging to the Pakistan Taliban were killed there, and that a large quantity of weapons was recovered. The two incidents underline the scale of the security challenge facing authorities in the province.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been one of the main theatres of militant violence in Pakistan, particularly in areas near the Afghan border. The latest deaths add to a pattern of attacks that officials say has intensified in recent months. The Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, has stepped up attacks on security forces in the region, according to the supplied reports.

Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the group. The organisation is separate from, but closely allied with, the Afghan Taliban, who returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused Afghanistan's Taliban government of sheltering Pakistan Taliban fighters, an allegation Kabul denies.

The broader backdrop is a strained relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which worsened after deadly border clashes in October last year that led to a near-total closure of the border. The supplied material says security forces in Pakistan say the violence in the border province emanates from Afghanistan, while the Taliban government in Kabul rejects that claim. The same material also says hundreds of civilians have been killed in fighting between the two countries in the last year, according to figures from the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.

That context helps explain why attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are viewed as part of a wider regional security problem rather than an isolated local incident. What remains unclear is the full sequence of events in Kohat, including the identities of all those involved and the fate of the missing vehicles. It is also not clear whether the attack and the separate Orakzai operation were directly linked beyond taking place in the same district area on the same day.

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