At least three people were killed and 23 wounded in a suicide bombing claimed by the Pakistani Taliban on Wednesday that targeted police officers escorting a polio vaccination team in western Pakistan, a police source said.
A suicide bomber targeted a police car preparing to escort this team, and the three dead were “a police officer, a woman and a child,” Azhar Mehesar, a senior police official in Quetta, told AFP.
The attack was alleged by the Pakistani Taliban of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) without further details, according to a statement sent to AFP.
The TTP, a separate group from the Afghan Taliban but driven by the same ideology, announced on Monday the end of the ceasefire, which was extended indefinitely in June to facilitate peace negotiations with Pakistani state officials.
He based this decision on Islamabad’s non-compliance with this ceasefire and promised to launch retaliatory attacks “across the country”.
For years, militant Islamists, including those of the TTP, have been taking targeted action against polio vaccinees and the police who provide security.
According to the Pakistani press, more than 70 polio vaccinees have been killed since 2012, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (Northwest), where the TTP is most entrenched.
Polio vaccination faces ongoing suspicion in Pakistan, where there are many conspiracy theories that the vaccines are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children.