PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A powerful roadside bomb struck a police vehicle Friday in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s northwest near the Afghan border, killing a city police chief and two junior officers, officials said.
The bombing took place in the city of Hangu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as the officers were heading to a police station that had been attacked less than an hour earlier, local police chief Adam Khan said. He gave no further details.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and blamed them on the Pakistani Taliban, which is a separate group but a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban, which returned to power in Kabul in August 2021 after the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.
Pakistan accuses Kabul of allowing Pakistani Taliban militants based in Afghanistan to carry out cross-border attacks. Kabul denies the charge, saying it does not allow its territory to be used against other countries.
Also on Friday, Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in the northwestern Tank district and killed eight Pakistani Taliban militants, the military said in a statement.
The latest violence came a day before Pakistan and Afghanistan are scheduled to hold a second round of peace talks in Istanbul, following an initial meeting in Qatari capital Doha on Oct. 19. Those talks, brokered by Qatar and Turkey, followed deadly border clashes that left dozens dead o …