Taliban Suicide Assault Team Strikes Police Station in Bannu

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan claimed credit for today's suicide assault on a police station in the northwestern district of Bannu.

A five-man team of “Fedayeen,” or “Martyrdom seekers,” attacked the police station this morning in Bannu, a district that borders the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan, Ihsanullah Ihsan, the main spokesman for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, told The Long War Journal.

The Taliban fighters lobbed grenades into the police station before entering and opening fire with assault rifles. Two of the fighters were reported to have been dressed in burqas. Three policemen were killed and three more were wounded, according to Xinhua. Ihsan claimed that “15-20 security personal were killed while scores of them [were] injured ….”

Ihsan claimed the attack in an email sent to The Long War Journal, and said that three of the attackers escaped.

“We the Mujaheddin of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claim responsibility of attacks on investigation police station in Bannu today,” Ihsan said. “In this martyrdom operation five mujahideen took part among them two embraced Shahadah [martyrdom] while three brothers came back to us by Grace of ALLAH after completing operation.”

Ihsan said the Taliban would “continue our war until we throw out the filthy democratic system out, and implement Shariah [Islamic law] in Pakistan.”

The Taliban launched a larger operation against a prison in Bannu on April 15, when hundreds of fighters stormed the jail and freed more than 400 inmates, many of whom are jihadists. Among those freed was Amjad Farooqi, the Pakistani terrorist who engineered the two assassination attempts against Musharraf in December 2003 at the behest of al Qaeda leader Abu Faraj al Libi and was involved in other terror attacks. The Taliban later released video of the assault that featured Farooqi.

The Taliban have launched three major attacks against Pakistani security forces in the past week. Two of the other attacks took place in the eastern province of Punjab. On July 9, the Taliban attacked a military camp in Gurjat, near Lahore, and killed six soldiers and a policeman. And on July 12, a small team of Taliban fighters struck a police facility in Lahore that killed eight policemen and wounded nine more. The July 12 attack in Lahore was very similar to today's attack in Bannu.