A powerful roadside bomb devastated a police vehicle in Pakistan’s volatile South Waziristan district on Wednesday, killing two officers and injuring fourteen others, according to AP News.
The attack occurred in Wana, a former bastion of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), underscoring the deteriorating security situation in regions bordering Afghanistan. Local police chief Adam Khan confirmed the assault, which unfolded amid a surge in militant violence claiming dozens of security personnel lives in recent weeks.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but authorities suspect the TTP, given its persistent targeting of security forces and civilians across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The bombing aligns with the group’s documented tactics of destabilising state institutions through asymmetric warfare. Analysts note the TTP frequently employs human shields and civilian casualties for propaganda, as evidenced in a nearly identical 14 July RPG attack on Wana police stations where civilians were deliberately endangered.
The TTP’s capabilities expanded since the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in August 2021. Many TTP fighters now operate from sanctuaries in Afghanistan, with Taliban officials controversially describing them as “guests.”
This sanctuary emboldened cross-border attacks, fracturing relations between Islamabad and Kabul. In December 2024, Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Paktika province killed 46 people, a move Kabul condemned as a violation of sovereignty.
The resurgence of violence exposes the limitations of Pakistan’s kinetic counterterrorism approach. Despite conducting 257 operations that killed 934 terrorists in 2024, security forces suffered at least 685 fatalities, the deadliest year in a decade.
