KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire Wednesday on police escorting a team of polio workers during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in northwestern Pakistan, killing an officer and a polio worker, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajur, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, according to local police chief Abdul Aziz.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued a statement condemning the attack.
Pakistan on Monday launched a nationwide polio campaign amid a spike in militant attacks. The potentially fatal, paralyzing disease mostly strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water.
That same day, a roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying officers assigned to protect health workers conducting polio immunization in the northwestern South Waziristan district, in the same province, wounding six officers and three civilians.
The militant Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for Monday's attack.
Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants target vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Since January, Pakistan has reported 17 new cases of polio, jeopardizing decades of efforts to eliminate polio in the country. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in which the spread of polio has never been stopped.
A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)
A police officer stands guard as a health worker, right, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)
Gunmen kill a polio worker during a vaccination campaign in Pakistan
Gunmen kill a polio worker during a vaccination campaign in Pakistan
BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously across Lebanon and in parts of Syria on Tuesday, wounding members of the militant group Hezbollah, the Iranian ambassador and dozens of other people. Officials pointed the finger at Israel in what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack at a time of rising tensions across the Lebanon border.
A Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that “several hundred” people, including members of the group, were wounded in different parts of Lebanon when their handheld pagers exploded. He said a few Hezbollah fighters were also wounded in Syria when the pagers they were carrying exploded, and said it was believed to be an Israeli attack.
It wasn’t immediately clear if people were killed.
The Associated Press reached out to the Israeli military, which declined to comment.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, close to the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, said on its Telegram channel that Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador in Lebanon, has a superficial injury and is under observation at a hospital. Another semi-official Mehr news agency, also on its Telegram channel, reported that Amani was wounded by a pager explosion.
Photos and videos from Beirut’s southern suburbs circulating on social media and in local media showed people lying on the pavement with wounds on their hands or near their pants pockets.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry called on all hospitals to be on alert to take in emergency patients and for people who own pagers to get away from them. It also asked health workers to avoid using wireless devices.
AP photographers at area hospitals said the emergency rooms were overloaded with patients, many of them with injuries to their limbs, some in serious condition.
The state-run National News Agency said hospitals in southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs — all areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence — had called on people to donate blood of all types.
The news agency reported that in Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas “the handheld pagers system was detonated using advanced technology, and dozens of injuries were reported.”
The Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media said the explosions were the result of “a security operation that targeted the devices.”
“The enemy (Israel) stands behind this security incident,” the official said, without elaborating. He added that the new pagers that Hezbollah members were carrying had lithium batteries that apparently exploded.
Lithium batteries, when overheated, can smoke, melt and even catch on fire. Rechargeable lithium batteries are used in consumer products ranging from cellphones and laptops to electric cars. Lithium battery fires can burn up to 590 C (1,100 F).
The incident comes at a time of heightened tensions between Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been clashing near-daily for more than 11 months against the backdrop of war between Israel and Hezbollah ally Hamas in Gaza.
The clashes have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border. On Tuesday, Israel said that halting Hezbollah’s attacks in the north to allow residents to return to their homes is now an official war goal.
Israel has killed Hamas militants in the past with booby trapped cellphones and it’s widely believed to have been behind the Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran’s nuclear program in 2010.
Abby Sewell and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, and Josef Federman, in Jerusalem, contributed to this report.
Police officers inspect a car inside of which a hand-held pager exploded, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Police officers inspect a car inside of which a hand-held pager exploded, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Police officers inspect a car inside of which a hand-held pager exploded, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Civil Defense first-responder carries a wounded man whose handheld pager exploded at al-Zahraa hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Civil Defense first-responders carry a wounded man whose handheld pager exploded at al-Zahraa hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
