Bomb kills five police from Pakistan polio protection team

At least five police officers assigned to guard polio vaccination workers in northwest Pakistan were slain by a roadside bomb on Monday, according to officials. “A police truck transporting around 25 policemen for anti-polio campaign duties was targeted by an IED (improvised explosive device),” Anwar ul Haq, a senior government official in Bajaur district, told AFP. According to him, at least 20 police officers were hurt and at least five police officers died. The number of deaths was also verified by top police official in the district, Kashif Zulfiqar. Approximately 14 kilometres (nine miles) from the Afghan border, in the Mamund area of the Bajaur province, was the site of the attack. Although Islamist extremists, such as the Pakistan Taliban, have previously killed several polio vaccination workers and their security guards, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident. The only nations where polio, a crippling virus that may cause permanent disability, is still widespread are Pakistan and Afghanistan. Opposition to inoculation grew after the US Central Intelligence Agency organised a fake vaccination drive to help track down Al-Qaeda’s former leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. Firebrand clerics in Pakistan’s restive and mountainous border region with Afghanistan have also spread misinformation that doses of the oral vaccine contain traces of pork and alcohol, which are forbidden by Islam. Pakistan is due to hold a delayed general election on February 8, as the country grapples with overlapping security, economic and political crises. Pakistan witnessed a dramatic spike in militant attacks, mainly in its border regions with Afghanistan, after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Last year saw casualties from attacks and state counter-terrorism operations hit a six-year high, with more than 1,500 civilians, security forces and militants killed, according to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies. Islamabad alleges hostile groups operate from “sanctuaries” across the border, a charge the Taliban government has consistently denied. The biggest threat to Pakistan is its domestic chapter of the Taliban known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which shares a common lineage with the new rulers of Kabul. “The Taliban have harboured and allowed active support of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan” who number between 4,000 and 6,000 in Afghanistan, a UN Security Council report said last year.