Reporting snapshot · 11 November 2026 (Asia/Karachi). The toll is preliminary. Police and rescue officials gave 11 killed and 12 injured by Wednesday evening, after earlier reports counted only injuries, and some of the wounded were in hospital. Police said an exchange of fire and a pursuit were continuing, no group had claimed responsibility, and the number of attackers had not been independently established.
Eleven policemen were killed and 12 injured when gunmen ambushed a police team on its way to raid illegal gold mining in the Darbokach area of Kohat district on Wednesday, 11 November, The Express Tribune reported, citing Kohat police and the Rescue 1122 emergency service.
The dead included Gambat Deputy Superintendent of Police Haider Zaman and Sub-Inspector Mukhtiar, Kohat police spokesperson Muhammad Nauman Zeb said. Rescue 1122 confirmed that the toll had reached 11, the newspaper reported. The police party was heading to conduct a raid against illegal mining when it came under fire in the Darbokach Jalandhar Banda area, between Kohat and Karak, Zeb said.
Initial reports suggested the attackers opened fire from hilltops, damaging police vehicles and setting five of them on fire. Additional police vehicles and a heavy contingent were sent to the scene, and an exchange of fire followed. The District Headquarters Teaching Hospital in Kohat declared an emergency, Zeb said. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi condemned the attack, sought a detailed report from police authorities and directed that those involved be brought to justice, according to The Express Tribune.
The ambush at Darbokach
Geo News reported earlier on Wednesday that 12 policemen had been injured in the firing, including DSP Haider Zaman and Gumbat station house officer Ayaz Afridi. Its first account did not report any deaths. The jump in the toll, reported by The Express Tribune and Anadolu Agency, marked a sharp change in the official account as rescue teams reached the site and the injured were moved to hospital.
Geo News said the operation was aimed at illegal gold mining on the River Indus, and that police had described the attackers as militants belonging to Fitna al-Khawarij, the term Pakistani officials use for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, along with “criminal elements”. Police said illegal gold mining in the area had continued because of a nexus between the two, according to the broadcaster.
Anadolu Agency, citing security sources, also reported 11 policemen killed and 12 injured. It said the Kohat police spokesperson had told The Express Tribune that five police vehicles were set on fire in the attack.
The officers killed
Police named two of the dead: DSP Haider Zaman of Gambat and Sub-Inspector Mukhtiar. The Express Tribune published their photographs but did not give their ages or service records, and named no other officers.
The 12 injured were taken to hospitals in Kohat. Geo News said Gumbat SHO Ayaz Afridi was among them. The District Headquarters Teaching Hospital declared an emergency, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Adviser on Information Samar Haroon Bilour said the injured should receive the best possible medical care, according to The Express Tribune.
The attack is the latest in a series of strikes on police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On 8 October, Station House Officer Daud Khan and his gunman, Farhad, were killed when armed men opened fire on a police patrol near the Karak-Kohat boundary, The Express Tribune reported. On 28 September, three traffic police personnel were killed in Tank district, and on 25 September a Counter-Terrorism Department constable, Muhammad Afaq, was killed during an operation in Peshawar’s Garhi Sherdad area.
One of the deadliest recent attacks in the district was on 18 September, when a blast and armed assault at Kohat’s Old Police Lines killed 15 police officers among 23 people, according to The Express Tribune’s account at the time. More than 50 people were wounded, KhabarWire reported then. Police later named a suspect, Zahid Gul, as the mastermind and said he was killed in a joint operation in Lakki Marwat in October.
A police force under pressure
The numbers behind those incidents point to a wider pattern. Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a global monitoring group, counted 2,425 attacks in Pakistan in 2025, nearly four times the 658 recorded in 2022, according to figures cited by The Express Tribune and Anadolu Agency. Two security reports presented to the federal cabinet in October found that terrorist incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had risen by 195 per cent between March 2024 and September 2026, and that 73 per cent of attacks recorded in the province during 2026 had targeted police and security personnel.
Those reports also identified drones and improvised explosive devices as growing threats. The October figures from the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, however, showed a 37 per cent fall in militant attacks nationwide from September, even as kidnappings reached a 12-month high, KhabarWire reported. The monthly numbers suggest the violence is not moving in a straight line, but police and security personnel remain its most frequent target.
The raid took place in the riverine belt along the Indus between Kohat and Karak, an area where police have repeatedly moved against illegal mining. Police have said the trade is intertwined with armed groups and local criminal networks. The government’s description of the attackers as Fitna al-Khawarij and criminal elements reflects that official view; it is not an independent finding, and no group had claimed the assault by Wednesday evening.
An operation still in progress
By Wednesday evening, the police account was still moving. Geo News quoted the Kohat district police officer as saying the pursuit of the attackers was continuing and that the operation would go on until the last militant was eliminated. The broadcaster also reported that police said several militants had been killed in the exchange of fire, while The Express Tribune did not give a militant casualty figure.
It was not clear how many attackers took part, whether any escaped, or how long the exchange of fire lasted. The police did not name a commander or a specific faction beyond the broad Fitna al-Khawarij description. The death toll could rise: 12 policemen were injured, and rescue officials were still working at the scene when the first reports of fatalities were published.
For now, the confirmed facts are the location, the target of the raid and the identity of two of the dead. The governor has asked for a report, the injured are in hospital, and the police say the operation is not over. The larger question — whether this attack marks another turn in the campaign against police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or another episode in a longer, uneven pattern — will depend on what the investigation establishes about the attackers and the network behind them.
