A police officer was martyred and two others were wounded in a terrorist attack in the Lachi area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohat district on Saturday. According to Kohat Regional Police Officer (RPO) Abbas Majeed Marwat, the terrorists carried out a “cowardly attack” on the police personnel. The fallen officer was identified as Inspector Ashfaq.
In the ensuing retaliatory fire, security forces neutralized three terrorists. This incident is part of a prolonged and severe surge in terrorist attacks that police and law enforcement agencies in the province have been confronting. Just earlier this month, a similar assault on a checkpost in the Bannu district resulted in the martyrdom of one police personnel and the deaths of three militants.
The surge in violence is widely attributed to an increase in cross-border terror incidents since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, with the bordering provinces of KP and Balochistan being the most severely affected. The attack in Kohat follows a pattern of militants often employing heavy weapons to assault security posts, leading to intense firefights.
The alarming frequency of these attacks is reflected in data from a recent report by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS). The report stated that the country witnessed 78 terrorist attacks in June alone, resulting in at least 100 deaths. Among the fatalities were 53 security personnel and 39 civilians, highlighting the severe toll the ongoing violence is taking on both the forces and the public.
