Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police: Pakistan’s Underfunded Frontline |
Asia Defense | Security | South Asia
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police: Pakistan’s Underfunded Frontline
KP police are the most targeted by terrorists. They are also the worst paid.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police carry out a search and strike operation in Karak District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan, May 6, 2026.
In the late evening of May 9, a vehicle packed with explosives rammed a police checkpost in Fateh Khel, Bannu in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Gunmen followed. By the time the firing stopped, as many as 15 policemen had been killed; some of the named victims included constables Rehmat Ayaz and Sanaullah, and drivers Niaz Ali and Saadullah Jan. The attack was claimed by Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan.
By the next morning, the news cycle had moved on. The graves remained.
It is tempting to read the May 9 bloodshed as an isolated horror. That would be dangerously wrong. Of the 2,330 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police officers killed since 1970, 1,961 (84 percent) have fallen since 2007. According to Inspector General of Police Zulfiqar Hameed, 159 were killed in 2025 alone, in over 500 attacks.
Of the 437 security personnel killed in terrorist attacks across Pakistan last year, 174 – the largest single contingent – wore the green-and-blue of a provincial police force, not the khaki of the army. Most fell in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Bannu district alone recorded 134 attacks on its police, 27 of them fatal.
These are not faceless statistics; they are men who lead from the front. In January 2023, when terrorists fled Sarband police station, Deputy Superintendent of Police Sardar Hussain chased them on foot and was cut down by sniper fire, alongside Constables Irshad and Jehanzeb. In August 2025, Constable Rooh Niaz Khan and three colleagues held off an assault by 40 to 50 attackers at a Bannu checkpost. In January this year, Station House Officer Ishaq Khan and six of his men were killed when an IED tore through their armored personnel carrier in Tank’s Gomal area. In April, when the Domel police station in Bannu was hit by a vehicle-borne suicide bombing, barricades kept every officer inside alive, though five civilians, including four members of one family, were not so lucky.
The list of the dead runs through the districts of Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Karak, Bajaur, and Wana. Senior officers are dying as well; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police officers slain by terrorists include two additional Inspectors General Safwat Ghayur and Ashraf Noor.
The force has also adapted, often without acknowledgement. In 2025 alone Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police conducted 3,277 intelligence-based operations, arrested 1,300 terrorists, and defused 110 improvised explosive devices and 385 grenades. Its Dispute Resolution Councils resolved more than 6,300 community disputes, a counter-radicalization tool that is quietly more effective than many kinetic operations. In December 2025, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became the first province in Pakistan to establish a dedicated counter-drone division at the Nowshera Police Training Center, in response to the surge of quadcopter strikes that........