Pakistani Taliban kill police officer guarding polio jab team

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Markswomen from the Pakistani Taliban fortified group have killed one police officer guarding a polio vaccination platoon in northwest Pakistan, in the first attack since the end of a one-month ceasefire with the government.

Mohammad Khurasani, spokesperson for the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban or TTP, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack that also left another officer wounded.

The attack took place in the quarter of Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fiefdom, on the alternate day of a five- dayanti-polio drive to vaccinate6.5 million children in the fiefdom, according to Aimal Khan, a prophet for the inoculation crusade.

It’s the rearmost violence to single out polio vaccination sweats in Pakistan, one of only two countries in the world where the enervating neurodegenerative complaint remains aboriginal.

Polio brigades and police assigned to cover them are frequently the target of fortified groups, who claim the vaccination juggernauts are a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.

Police officer Sajjad Ahmed told The Associated Press news agency two markswomen riding a motorcycle opened fire on the police platoon convoying polio vaccinators in the Chaddarah area.

One bobby was killed on the spot and a Frontier Constabulary officer was critically wounded, while members of the vaccination platoon were unhurt.

While the Pakistani Taliban is a separate organisation from Afghanistan’s Taliban, which seized power in August, the Taliban government in Afghanistan helped grease the ceasefire between the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan and the TTP.

Peace addresses between the government and the TTP began last month, with government spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry saying at the time the ceasefire could be extended if addresses continued to make progress.

Security judges have been sceptical of the peace addresses process, citing former similar agreements between the TTP or its abettors and the Pakistani government that collapse

. Since its conformation in 2007, the TTP has carried out some of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani soil, targeting political leaders, civilians and security forces in surge after surge of self-murder bombings, extemporized explosive device attacks and targeted killings, among others.