Four police officers killed as militants target police vehicle, security checkpoint in Pak

Peshawar, Jan 13(ANI): Four police officers were killed and nine others wounded, when militants targeted a police vehicle and a security checkpoint with bombs in northwest Pakistan on Thursday.

In the first attack, three policemen were killed when a remote-controlled bomb destroyed a vehicle carrying police and paramilitary forces in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Dawn quoted a police official, as saying.

Five security personnel were also wounded in the attack, he added.

In another militant attack, a bomb ripped through a checkpoint manned by tribal police in Bara, a town near the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing one officer and wounding four others.

The attacks came a day after a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a mosque in Bannu, killing 20 people and injuring 16 others.

The Pakistani Taliban immediately claimed Wednesday's attack, and said they were avenging US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt.

Wednesday's bomb attack followed a missile strike by an unmanned aircraft on a militant compound in North Waziristan at dawn, which killed five militants, security officials said. (ANI)