Several militants launched an assault on a police station in northern Pakistan on Monday morning, resulting in the death of at least 10 officers, as confirmed by a high-ranking commander.

The incident occurred shortly before Pakistan prepares to hold a general election amid a string of numerous attacks targeting candidates and party supporters in recent days.

"More than 30 terrorists launched an attack from three directions. There was an exchange of fire for over two and a half hours," Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Akhtar Hayat Gandapur said, as quoted by AFP.

He reported that the assault on the Chaudhwan police station in the Dera Ismail Khan district resulted in the death of 10 officers and the injury of four others.

The border areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have long been a focal point of militant activities, with both Pakistan Taliban and Islamic State fighters targeting government and security installations.

Gandapur said, as quoted by AFP, that the militants temporarily took charge of the police station during the early Monday morning attack, commencing at approximately 1:30 am.

This comes shortly after heavily armed militants carried out three synchronized attacks in Pakistan's turbulent Balochistan province on January 31, including one targeting a high-security prison. The assaults resulted in the death of four law enforcement personnel and two civilians, sparking an exchange of fire in which nine of the militants were also killed.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) Majeed group, a proscribed separatist organization, has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which broke out into an intense gunfight lasting several hours between the security forces and the assailants, who attempted to withdraw into the mountainous terrain.

Attacks kill nearly 1,000 people in Pakistan in 2023 

In 2023, a series of militant attacks in Pakistan resulted in the death of approximately 500 civilians and a comparable number of security forces, marking the highest toll in six years, as per a recent report released last December.

The majority of terrorist attacks and casualties in 2023 were concentrated in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Baluchistan provinces, which share borders with Afghanistan, according to a report from the independent Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) based in Islamabad.

The report highlighted that 2023 marked the deadliest year in a decade for Pakistani police and military forces, with over 500 personnel collectively lost in terrorist bombings and ambushes.

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