PESHAWAR: Police personnel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are being targeted in multiple districts, with many left vulnerable on the ground due to a shortage of protected vehicles, especially in high-risk areas.
The latest attack was in the Havaid area of Bannu where a patrolling car was attacked and then torched by the terrorists. One policeman was martyred and three others were injured in the attack.
According to the regional police officer Bannu, Sajjad Khan, two attackers were gunned down when the cops retaliated. In the last two months, many vehicles of police and other forces have come under attack in different districts of Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Kohat divisions.
A patrolling car of police was targeted with a bomb in Lakki Marwat a few days back in which a station house officer and six other cops were martyred. A lieutenant colonel Shahzada Gul Faraz and another soldier were martyred in a suicide attack in Bannu last month.
Four policemen, including station house officer, were martyred in an attack in Dera Ismail Khan last month. A deputy superintendent of police and five other policemen were martyred in an attack on a police car in Kohat in January.
In October last year, a superintendent of police Asad Zubair and two cops were martyred in a bomb attack in Hangu. Another SP, Khalid Khan, was critically wounded in firing in Hangu a few months back.
Even the armoured personnel carriers were targeted by the terrorists with explosives in some incidents. In one attack in Tank, six policemen were martyred when a powerful bomb targeted even an armoured personnel carrier of the police in January. Such attacks can be foiled with jammers. The armoured vehicles, however, can protect policemen from gunshots and low intensity explosions at least.
In one attack in Tank a few months back, a district police officer survived an attack only because of the bullet-proof car. Five cops in his escort car were wounded though as attackers targeted the convoy at three different spots.
Some patrolling cars are being protected through placing armoured sheets on both sides to minimise the damage in case of attack. More such vehicles need to be made protected with such plates on three sides, including one folding sheet that can protect the cops from gunshots fired from behind.
In many areas, patrolling has been minimised after the sunset to avoid attacks. According to a report of the KP Police, a total of 571 terrorism incidents were reported in Bannu division alone out of total 1580 incidents in KP in 2025. Terrorists also used explosive-carrying drones on a number of occasions to target police stations, police posts and patrolling cars in Bannu.
Most of the southern districts in KP continued to remain volatile during the last few years. After Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan division witnessed the highest number of terrorism incidents during the time.
Kohat, one of the three divisions in the southern part of KP, was relatively peaceful till last year but terrorists struck on a number of occasions in Kurram, Orakzai, Hangu and Karak districts recently.
The situation in the entire southern belt of KP has worsened in the last few years. Despite claims by the government and police that several measures were taken to improve law and order across KP, particularly in the southern districts, the situation remained the same.
