A suicide car bombing followed by a firefight has killed at least 15 police officers at the Fateh Khel police post in Bannu (a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border), with fears the death toll may rise. Militants rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the post, triggering multiple blasts that reduced the structure to rubble, before attacking from multiple directions using heavy weapons and quadcopter drones; an ambush on officers responding as backup added to the casualties. The Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, an alliance of armed groups, claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes amid a broader surge in militant violence in the region and ongoing tensions between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban over cross-border militancy.