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Suspected Islamist militants armed with rockets and petrol bombs ambushed a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan, killing five policemen before dawn Wednesday, officials said.
The attack took place at Speen Qabar checkpoint, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, where militants routinely attack security forces.
Dozens of militants lobbed rockets at the checkpoint, then opened fired with automatic weapons before throwing petrol bombs, setting it on fire, senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan told AFP.
"Three Frontier Constabulary personnel and two policemen were martyred in the attack and the sixth policeman posted (at the checkpoint) is the lone survivor, but he is also wounded," Khan said.
Khan blamed the attack on Lashkar-e-Islam, a militant group active in the neighbouring district of Khyber, which is part of Pakistan's lawless and semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
"The attackers came from Khyber and they belong to Lashkar-e-Islam," Khan said.
Another senior police official, Sher Akbar Khan, confirmed the incident and the death toll.
Khyber is on the main NATO land and supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where more than 121,000 foreign forces are battling to reverse an escalating Taliban insurgency, now into its ninth year.
Lashkar-e-Islam, which means Army of Islam, is a criminal homegrown Islamist group with ties to the Taliban that has stirred up trouble in Khyber and attacked NATO supply vehicles travelling through the area.
