Suicide bombing, shooting kill 6 Pakistani police

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Six police were killed in two separate attacks in Pakistan on Thursday, including a suicide bombing that wounded a senior police commander, officials said.

The suicide bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near a vehicle in the northwestern city of Peshawar, the city’s police chief Mian Muhammad Saeed said. Two policemen were killed, and deputy commander Malik Tariq, who was riding in the vehicle, was wounded along with two of his guards, he said.

Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the bombing and warned of more attacks. The militant group has spent nearly a decade fighting to overthrow the government and replace it with a hard-line Islamic state.

Hours later, gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing four officers, police spokesman Farhat Shahzada said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where a low-scale insurgency demanding more autonomy and a greater share of the province’s oil and gas resources has been underway for years.

The military meanwhile said a “cordon and search” operation in the North Waziristan tribal region resulted in the killing of 10 militants, without providing further details. Pakistan launched a major offensive a year ago in North Waziristan, a longtime haven for the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups.

The military says the operation has killed over 1,300 militants since then and that 90 percent of the region has been cleared of insurgents. Journalists have virtually no access to the mountainous region along the Afghan border.