Militants attacked a police station with hand grenades and shot dead three police officers in an ensuing gunbattle near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials said on January 14.

Kashef Aftab, head of the Peshawar police force, told Radio Mashaal that seven to eight militants attacked the police station in the Sarband area of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders Afghanistan.

He did not cite causalities among the militants but said efforts were under way to seize or eliminate them.

A senior officer and two other security personnel were killed in the fighting, officials said.

The outlawed Tehrik-e Taliban (TTP) -- also known as the Pakistani Taliban -- claimed responsibility for the attack.

The TTP militants are staging a gradual comeback in the tribal districts following a deadlock with the Pakistani authorities in peace talks launched last year.

The Afghanistan-based TTP had earlier announced a cease-fire with Pakistan, but the group later claimed Islamabad had failed to live up to its promises, leading the militants to launch attacks on police and civilians over the past few months.

Muhammad Ali Saif, adviser to the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, of which the tribal areas are a part, told Radio Mashaal on September 20 that the peace talks were stalled but not ended.

The TTP militants claimed the killing of a peace committee leader in Swat district in September after which locals staged several demonstrations demanding the expulsion of militants from their areas.

Security officials say army units and police contingents were been moved into areas where locals say militants are present.

Southwest of Peshawar on January 5, Pakistani security forces said they killed 11 Islamic militants in an operation in the restive South Waziristan tribal district that also borders Afghanistan.

The Inter-Services Public Relations, the military's media wing, said in a statement that an intelligence-based operation was carried out in the Wana region of South Waziristan.

Those killed in the operation included a commander and two would-be suicide bombers, the statement said. The region has been frequent target of militant attacks.

Pakistan has accused the Afghan Taliban rulers have giving safe harbor to TTP militants inside of Afghanistan, a charge the Taliban deny.

Pakistan blamed the TTP for at least 250 attacks that killed more than 400 people in Pakistan between August 2021 and August 2022.