What happened
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Counter-Terrorism Department and Lower Dir police killed six suspected terrorists during an operation in the district’s hilly areas on Wednesday, 24 June 2026, according to a report by Dawn published the following day.
Separately, unidentified assailants blew up a government girls’ primary school with explosives late on Tuesday night, 23 June, in the Sara Ghowara area of Birmal tehsil in Lower South Waziristan.
District Police Officer Muhammad Tahir Shah said the school building was destroyed in the explosion. He told Dawn that police had registered an initial report in the daily log and launched an investigation. No individual or group had claimed responsibility until the report was filed.
The report did not name the six people killed in Lower Dir, describe weapons or explosives recovered, or identify a group they were suspected of belonging to.
Why it matters
The two incidents, in separate districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, point to continuing attacks on state infrastructure and sustained counter-terrorism operations across the province’s northern districts and the former tribal areas. The bombing of a girls’ school is the kind of target that has drawn repeated condemnation in the region, where schools have been attacked over years of militancy.
Dawn also reported that terrorists used a quadcopter to drop two explosive devices on the Haved police station in Bannu the same week, injuring two Frontier Corps personnel and partially damaging two government vehicles, one of a series of security incidents in that district. KhabarWire’s earlier report on security operations that killed 23 terrorists documented a comparable wave of activity in the province in May 2026.
What is still uncertain
No group had claimed the school bombing, and the report gave no account of arrests or a named investigation team. The identity, affiliation and exact location of the six people killed in the Lower Dir operation were also not disclosed. The Bannu incidents described by Dawn included abductions and a suspected drone strike that remained under investigation.
Sources & reporting notes
This is a summary of published reporting, not independent reporting. Details are as carried by the cited sources, which were reviewed on 2026-06-25.
- Dawn — "Six terrorists killed in Dir; school blown up in S. Waziristan"25 June 2026 · The CTD and Lower Dir police operation and the bombing of the girls' primary school.
- Dawn — "Terrorists use quadcopter to drop explosives on Bannu police station"25 June 2026 · Related security incidents in Bannu district, cited as context.
