Pakistan Police Post Attack Kills 11 Officers, 15 Militants

A police officer with a machine gun stands guard at a hospital where injured victims of an overnight deadly militant attack on a police post are being treated, in Hangu, a district in northwestern Pakistan, Thursday, July 30, 2026.

The death toll from an overnight militant attack on a police post in northwestern Pakistan rose to 11 on Thursday, while security forces killed 15 attackers, police and a government official said.

Security forces killed the 15 militants following an hourlong gunbattle after the attackers targeted the Khazina police post in Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, police official Irfan Khan said.

No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Suspicion is likely to fall on Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, which has intensified attacks on Pakistani security forces in the region in recent months.

Among those killed was Diyar Khan, a senior police officer who led reinforcements to the scene, according to a statement from the provincial police. More than two dozen police officers were also wounded.

Police said the militants attacked the post with heavy weapons. Reinforcement teams sent to the area were ambushed on the way, damaging an armoured personnel carrier before the officers engaged the attackers and fought back.

Pakistan has experienced a surge in militant violence in recent years, much of it attributed to the TTP, which is separate from but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban.

The Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021. Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan's Taliban government of providing sanctuary to TTP militants, an allegation Kabul denies.