Taliban assault: Shangla check post attack leaves 3 dead

Militants struck before dawn in the district near Swat.

PESHAWAR:

Three policemen were killed after two dozen heavily-armed Taliban mounted a pre-dawn rocket attack on a police check post in Shangla district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday. Another policeman was injured in the attack.

The district is near Swat where the army is claimed to have flushed out Taliban rebels after a fierce offensive in early 2009.

“Three policemen were killed and one injured in the attack,” district police chief Jahanzeb Khan said on phone. Shah Hussain, another senior police officer, said Taliban militants were involved in the attack. “Taliban came from the nearby mountains and managed to flee after the attack,” he said.

Nearly 4,500 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on the Taliban and other extremist networks based in the border tribal belt.

Militants have stepped up their activities, mostly targeting security forces, to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden who was killed in a covert operation by US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad in May.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2011.