Attack in northwest Pakistan comes after finish of one-month ceasefire between the armed group and the federal government.
Gunmen from the Pakistani Taliban armed group have killed one police officer guarding a polio vaccination team in northwest Pakistan, within the first assault for the reason that finish of a one-month ceasefire with the federal government.
Mohammad Khurasani, spokesman for the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also referred to as the Pakistani Taliban or TTP, claimed accountability for Saturday’s assault that additionally left one other officer wounded.
The assault passed off within the district of Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on the second day of a five-day anti-polio drive to vaccinate 6.5 million youngsters within the province, in keeping with Aimal Khan, a spokesperson for the inoculation marketing campaign.
It is the most recent violence to single out polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan, one in all solely two international locations on the planet the place the debilitating neurodegenerative illness stays endemic.
Polio groups and police assigned to guard them are sometimes the goal of armed teams, who declare the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilise youngsters.
Police officer Sajjad Ahmed informed The Associated Press information company two gunmen driving a motorbike opened hearth on the police team escorting polio vaccinators within the Chaddarah space.
One constable was killed on the spot and a Frontier Constabulary officer was critically wounded, whereas members of the vaccination team have been unharmed.
While the Pakistani Taliban is a separate organisation from Afghanistan’s Taliban, which seized energy in August, the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan helped facilitate the ceasefire between the federal government of Prime Minister Imran Khan and the TTP.
Peace talks between the federal government and the TTP started final month, with authorities spokesman Fawad Chaudhry saying on the time the ceasefire might be prolonged if talks continued to make progress.
Security analysts have been sceptical of the peace talks course of, citing earlier such agreements between the TTP or its allies and the Pakistani authorities that collapsed.
Since its formation in 2007, the TTP has carried out a few of the deadliest assaults on Pakistani soil, focusing on political leaders, civilians and safety forces in wave after wave of suicide bombings, improvised explosive system assaults and focused killings, amongst others.
