Ten police officers and 18 militants were reported killed after gunmen ambushed police vehicles in Kohat district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Wednesday, according to local authorities cited by The Associated Press. Two senior officers were among those killed, local police official Faisal Khan said.

The officers were returning from an operation against people suspected of involvement in illegal gold mining when the convoy came under fire, Khan told AP. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police said 18 militants were killed in the ensuing exchange. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), later claimed responsibility.

Competing claims around the attack

Police alleged the attackers had links to criminal networks and said the groups acted at the behest of foreign powers. AP reported that police offered no evidence for the foreign-link allegation. The claim should therefore be treated as an assertion by authorities, not an established finding.

The attack occurred in a province that has faced repeated militant violence. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities of sheltering TTP members, an allegation Kabul denies. That wider dispute is part of the regional context, but no evidence publicly presented so far establishes a connection between the Afghan government and this ambush.

Questions for investigators

The operation against illegal mining and the TTP’s claim of responsibility raise questions about how criminal activity and insurgent violence intersect locally. The available reporting does not establish that mining proceeds financed the attack. Authorities have vowed action against those they say facilitated the gunmen; further evidence will be needed to clarify the attackers’ networks and motive.