Suicide bombers dressed as women in burkas killed four police officers on Monday as they stormed a police base in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu where a funeral was being held.

The banned Fitna-al Khawarij – also known as TTP – in a statement claimed the attack, which took place in Bannu around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Afghan border.

Officers had gathered for the funeral of a colleague killed a day earlier in a militant attack when the raid began.

“Four of the militants were wearing suicide vests, but they were neutralised before they could detonate them. The police (base) has been fully cleared,” said senior police official in the district Imran Shahid.

He said four police officers were killed and five militants.

“The five militants, disguised as women wearing burqas, reached the gate of the police [base] before launching their attack,” provincial minister Pakhtoon Yar Khan, who is from the district, told AFP.

Islamabad has witnessed a surge in militancy since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, and accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out TTP members preparing attacks from their soil.

The assault was carried out as Islamabad received Chinese Premier Li Qiang ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Whilst the capital is generally regarded as safe, and has been locked down for the summit, other areas in Pakistan have been hit by numerous attacks in the run-up to the conference.

Two Chinese engineers were slain in a bombing in southern Karachi city last weekend and 20 coal miners shot dead by heavily armed men in Balochistan on Friday.