A Force on the Fault Line – How Pakistan’s Provincial Police Became the Deliberate Target

A Force on the Fault Line – How Pakistan’s provincial police became the deliberate target of a converging militant campaign, and a political weapon in the fight between Islamabad and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

On the evening of 9 May, an explosives-laden vehicle rammed the Fatah Khel police checkpost in Bannu district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Gunmen and weaponized quadcopters followed the blast into the compound. According to Pakistani police and Foreign Office accounts, fifteen KP policemen were killed and four others injured, including a civilian; international wire reporting placed the toll as high as 21 officers. An armored police vehicle stationed at the post had been destroyed, and a newly named Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) linked faction, Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, had claimed responsibility. Pakistan’s Foreign Office summoned the Afghan chargé d’affaires the following morning and handed over a démarche.

Several days later, on 20 May, militants attacked the Military Police station at Chitarwata in the Koh-i-Sulaiman tribal belt of Dera Ghazi Khan — extending the police-targeting pattern into Souther Punjab, even as personnel escaped unharmed.