Attack on foreign diplomats' convoy kills police officer in northwestern Pakistan

A powerful roadside bomb detonated near a convoy of foreign diplomats visiting Pakistan's northwestern scenic Swat district, killing at least one police officer and injuring several others. 

Pakistani authorities said the convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) as it was passing through the town of Malam Jabba in the Swat district on Sunday.

"One policeman succumbed to his wounds while three others were wounded," Swat district police officer Zahidullah Khan was quoted as saying. 

"Diplomats were traveling within a police convoy, and the lead police vehicle was impacted," he said.

Police officials in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the district is located, confirmed the casualties, saying the victims were part of the squad leading the convoy of about a dozen countries.

Envoys from Iran, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Vietnam were in the convoy. 

The authorities confirmed that all members of the delegation were evacuated safely from the site of the blast. 

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry in a late evening statement reported that "the group of diplomats has returned safely to Islamabad.”

"Such acts will not deter Pakistan from its commitment towards the fight against terrorism," the statement read.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari also condemned the attack. “Terrorist elements are enemies not only of the country and nation but of humanity itself,” he said in a statement issued by his office. 

Separately, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office stated that he denounced the attack as a “cowardly terrorist” act.

Russian Ambassador Albert Khorev’s office in Islamabad confirmed his presence in the convoy, along with several other ambassadors.

"An escort vehicle hit a mine. Several policemen were injured, but diplomats were not harmed,"  the Russian embassy in Islamabad said on Telegram.

The trip for foreign diplomats was organized by Islamabad and Swat's Chamber of Commerce to promote the region's local industries. Earlier in the day, the delegation attended a tourism forum hosted by the Trade and Industry Chamber of Islamabad.

The attack happened in a region that has been a stronghold of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group.  

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The outlawed TTP has a strong presence in North Waziristan and elsewhere in areas close to the Afghan border. .

TTP’s intensified attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan, have killed more than 100 police and an equal number of civilians since the start of the year.

Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in attacks since the Taliban seized control in 2021 of Kabul. Islamabad says such offensives are being launched from neighboring Afghanistan. 

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Islamabad said “unprovoked and indiscriminate firing” by Afghan Taliban forces led to the closure of a crucial trade route.

Senior authorities in Islamabad blame the extremist group is orchestrating the violence from Afghan sanctuaries and is being facilitated by Taliban rulers of the neighboring country.

The Taliban administration in Kabul rejects the allegations, saying no foreign group, is being allowed to use Afghan soil against other countries.

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