PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A roadside bomb targeting police in northwest Pakistan killed one officer and wounded five others Thursday, close to the scene of a deadly suicide attack on security forces a day earlier.
The officers were hit in their car while on patrol in the garrison town of Bannu, southwest of Peshawar city in the country's troubled northwest, where a Taliban-claimed attack on a police station Wednesday left 18 people dead.
"One policeman has died and five others were wounded. It was a remote-controlled bomb," district police chief Mohammad Iftikhar told AFP by telephone.
In Wednesday's attack, 18 people were killed and 15 others wounded when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police station in Bannu.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, part of a campaign of violence against security forces they say is in revenge for US drone strikes on the country's remote and militant-hit tribal areas on the Afghanistan border.
The United States does not officially confirm the controversial missile strikes, which take place with Islamabad's tacit approval.
Around 4,000 people have died in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007. The attacks have been blamed on terror networks linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
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