8 police officers killed in attack on police vehicles in Pakistan

8 police officers were killed in an attack on police vehicles travelling to halt illegal gold mining in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.

A senior official in the Kohat region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province told AFP that, in addition to the 8 police officers killed, 13 other people suffered injuries of varying severity in the attack.

Militants set fire to 2 police vehicles in Wednesday's attack, while 2 other police vehicles and a privately owned vehicle are missing.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack in the border region. Security forces in the area say such attacks originate from within Afghanistan. However, Afghanistan's Taliban government has denied those allegations.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated significantly since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021. Tensions worsened further when serious clashes in the border region in October last year forced the border to close.