Gunmen attacked police during an operation against illegal gold mining in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing 10 officers, while 18 militants died in the ensuing fighting, an official police statement said.
A statement by provincial police in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said officers were returning from a mine in the Gumbat area of Kohat district when militants opened fire on them.
In addition to the 10 police and 18 militant deaths, 12 police personnel were wounded, the statement said.
In the aftermath of the clashes, the Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for a series of attacks across the country, including one on a police convoy in the Gumbat area.
Earlier, a senior administrative official in Kohat told AFP that militants set two police vehicles on fire during the assault, while two other police vehicles and one private vehicle were missing.
Another senior administrative official in the Orakzai area of Kohat said that 10 militants belonging to the TTP were killed during a separate operation in the district.
A large quantity of weapons was also recovered from the militants, the official added.
Security forces are battling an intensifying militancy in the border province they say emanates from Afghanistan, an accusation its Taliban government denies.
A spokesman for a local emergency service earlier on Wednesday said there had been a "firing incident involving police personnel" in Kohat district, adding that rescue workers were treating a dozen wounded officers.
- 'Open war' -
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fraught since the Taliban authorities took power in 2021, and worsened after deadly border clashes in October last year that led to near-total closure of the border.
Clashes subsided after mediation, but the conflict intensified again in February, with Pakistan declaring "an open war" on its neighbor.
In a statement, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, expressed his sorrow over the deaths of the police and said "national determination to completely eradicate terrorism from the country is unwavering".
Pakistan's foreign minister Ishaq Dar said he was "deeply grieved by the loss of precious lives in a cowardly terrorist attack on our police personnel in Kohat".
Islamabad accuses Kabul of allowing militants responsible for deadly attacks on Pakistani territory to operate from its soil. Afghanistan's Taliban authorities have denied the allegations.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in fighting between the two countries since October last year, according to figures from the United Nations' mission in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed two police officers assigned to protect a polio vaccination team travelling near the Afghan border.
The province was placed under emergency rule last month in a move authorities said came in reaction to the failure by the provincial government to act against militancy.
The imposition of emergency measures sidelined the last remaining bastion of power for jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
The special constitutional measures also set off a province-wide crackdown on Khan's supporters, with hundreds of detentions.
