Gunmen killed two police officers and injured another in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, November 3, while the officers were travelling to provide security for polio vaccination teams.
The attackers, who were riding a motorcycle, opened fire on a police vehicle in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Local reporting placed the shooting in Mohmand district.
Police official Ali Rehman Khan told AFP that no vaccination staff were inside the vehicle when it was attacked.
No group had claimed responsibility in the reports available following the shooting.
Officers were heading to vaccination security duty
The officers were on their way to join a vaccination team serving a nearby community.
Their deaths highlight the security risks surrounding Pakistan’s efforts to reach children in areas where health workers and their escorts have repeatedly faced attacks.
| Incident detail | Reported information |
|---|---|
| Date | November 3, 2026 |
| Location | Mohmand district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa |
| Officers killed | Two |
| Officers injured | One |
| Vaccination staff in the vehicle | None, according to police |
| Responsibility | No immediate claim |
The absence of vaccination workers from the vehicle is an important distinction: the officers were travelling to protect the teams when the shooting occurred.
President condemns the attack
President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the shooting and paid tribute to the officers.
He described police assigned to protect vaccination teams as performing a national duty and expressed sympathy for the families of those killed.
The attack placed renewed attention on the protection required for health campaigns in vulnerable communities. Vaccination teams depend on safe access to households, while police escorts face risks as they travel between locations.
Separate abduction reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The shooting followed a separate abduction reported on Monday in the same province.
Accounts differed over the identities of the four people taken. The Al Jazeera and AFP report described them as police officers protecting vaccination workers, while Associated Press and several Pakistani outlets identified them as polio workers abducted in Tank district.
Provincial authorities called for their safe recovery. The differing descriptions mean their roles should not be treated as conclusively established from the initial reporting.
Vaccination drive aims to reach nearly 24 million children
The violence occurred during a targeted polio vaccination campaign covering 97 high-risk districts and aiming to reach nearly 24 million children.
Pakistan had recently reported its eighth polio case of 2026, involving a 13-month-old girl in Khyber district.
Of those eight reported cases, six were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two in Sindh. Pakistan recorded 31 cases in 2025, according to the figures cited in the reporting.
The concentration of cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa makes access to children there particularly important to the eradication effort.
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Violence and misinformation complicate eradication
Polio vaccination teams and their security escorts have been targeted repeatedly in Pakistan.
Some armed groups have promoted false claims that vaccination campaigns are intended to sterilise children. Those allegations are misinformation and have contributed to hostility towards health workers.
Although the Pakistani Taliban and other groups have carried out previous attacks, that history does not establish responsibility for this shooting.
Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan remain the only countries where wild poliovirus is endemic. Polio is a contagious viral disease that can cause permanent paralysis.
The latest attack illustrates how insecurity can obstruct a public health campaign: reaching children requires both vaccine availability and safe conditions for the people delivering it.
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