Reporting snapshot · 3 November 2026. Police have given a preliminary account and have not named the attackers, their affiliation or a motive. A search operation is under way, and the sequence of the shooting and the condition of the wounded officer may be revised.
What happened
Two policemen were killed and a third was wounded on Tuesday, 3 November, when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on officers travelling to guard polio vaccination teams in Mohmand district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, police said.
District Police Officer Raza Muhammad Khan said the attack took place in the Tamanzai area, within the jurisdiction of Pandiali police station, during the anti-polio campaign, The Express Tribune reported. The newspaper named the dead policemen as Zahoor and Arabi and the wounded officer as Sabir.
The Associated Press, citing police officer Ayaz Khan, reported that the officers were on their way to a nearby village to protect vaccination teams when they came under fire. The attackers fled, and no group immediately claimed responsibility.
The accounts differ in emphasis. The Express Tribune, citing the district police chief, said one attacker was wounded and that a search operation was under way. The Associated Press reported that the attackers fled and did not mention an injured gunman. Police have not said whether the wounded attacker was arrested, escaped or died.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the shooting. The Associated Press reported that he called the attack “intolerable” and offered condolences to the officers’ families. The Express Tribune reported that he described the incident as “unacceptable” and said the elements involved did not deserve “any leniency”.
The shooting came a day after four polio workers were abducted in Tank district and two others were held in Lower South Waziristan before being released. The national campaign began on Monday, 2 November, and is due to run until 8 November in 97 districts, with the aim of reaching nearly 24 million children under five, according to the National Emergency Operations Centre.
Why Mohmand
Mohmand is a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that borders Afghanistan. Police escorts are a routine part of vaccination work in the province: the officers who came under fire on Tuesday were travelling to protect teams going door to door, not to vaccinate children themselves.
The Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups regularly target anti-polio drives and the police protecting health workers, falsely claiming that the campaigns are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilise children, the Associated Press reported. The tactic turns the security escort into the target, and it exposes the central vulnerability of a campaign that depends on teams moving through contested ground.
Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only countries where wild poliovirus is endemic, according to the World Health Organization. Pakistan has confirmed eight cases this year, six of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the latest in Khyber district on 1 November, KhabarWire reported. The November round is intended to close immunity gaps in the districts where the virus is still circulating.
The escort problem
Every vaccination round depends on teams reaching children at their doors. In districts where militants operate, police officers accompany the vaccinators, and the campaign’s coverage figures rest on those escorts being able to move safely.
When an escort is attacked, the immediate harm is to the officers and their families. The operational risk is broader. A fatal attack can force a district administration to pause teams in the affected area, tighten movement rules or shift staff, all of which reduce the time available to reach children before the round ends. No such suspension had been announced in Mohmand by Tuesday afternoon.
Neither account said that any vaccinator was hurt in the Mohmand shooting. The casualties were all police personnel.
Naqvi said the policemen deployed to protect polio workers were “striving for our healthy future”. He did not announce any change to the campaign’s security arrangements.
What is still uncertain
No group has claimed the attack, and police have not publicly attributed it. The identity, affiliation and motive of the gunmen remain unknown, as does the question of whether they were acting on orders from a larger network or were a smaller local cell.
The condition of the wounded officer, Sabir, has not been disclosed. Police named the dead and wounded in briefings to reporters, but have not published a formal statement setting out the sequence of events.
It is also unclear whether vaccination teams continued working in Pandiali tehsil after the shooting. District officials have not said whether the schedule in Tamanzai or nearby areas has changed.
No link has been established between the Mohmand shooting and the abductions in Tank and Lower South Waziristan. They occurred in different districts and, on the available accounts, involved different methods. The Express Tribune reported that sources had attributed the South Waziristan abduction to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, but that attribution has not been confirmed by police.
Finally, the initial account may change. The district police chief’s briefing and the Associated Press’s reporting agree on the central facts, but only The Express Tribune’s account says an attacker was wounded. Police have not said whether the search operation has produced a suspect.
What happens next
The immediate test is whether the search operation in Pandiali produces arrests and whether police can establish who ordered or carried out the attack. The longer test is whether the campaign can keep its teams moving in Mohmand and the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the remaining days of the round.
For the programme, the arithmetic is unforgiving. It has eight confirmed cases this year and a deadline of 8 November to reach children in 97 districts. Each attack on an escort raises the cost of that work and narrows the areas where teams can operate at the speed the schedule assumes. The campaign is due to end on 8 November; whether it does so on plan in Mohmand will depend on decisions taken in the next few days.
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