Militant attacks on Pakistani police kill 5 as government hunt for insurgents displaces thousands

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A series of attacks against Pakistani police by militants left five officers dead and eight wounded in a region where a government operation against insurgents has displaced 100,000 people, officials said.

There were four attacks with three resulting in officer casualties Thursday, police said.

Most died or were injured in a single attack in the Upper Dir district when armed men ambushed a police van early Thursday. Three officers died and seven were injured during the routine patrol, police official Ismail Khan said.

In the Peshawar suburb of Hassan Khel, armed men opened fire on a police station with automatic weapons. One officer died and another was wounded in an exchange of fire, Peshawar Capital City Police Officer Qasim Ali Khan said.

Two other overnight attacks came at police checkpoints in the Lajbok area of the Lower Dir district, where a police constable was killed, and in the Bannu district, where there were no casualties reported.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the assaults and it was not immediately known if they were connected.

Authorities have stepped up security across the country on the country's Independence Day, which was celebrated Thursday. The attacks on police coincided with a security operation to fight militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Bajaur district. There was no formal announcement of the offensive’s launch in Bajaur, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban.

Local government administrator Saeed Ullah said it was not a large-scale operation and only insurgent hideouts were targeted to avoid hurting or killing civilians, but the operation has displaced at least 100,000 people and there have been civilian casualties, including deaths.

On Thursday, hundreds of people carried black flags and staged a sit-in to protest the killing of a mother and her two children in the district’s Inayat Kili area, who died when a mortar struck their home.

Authorities are registering displaced families from the Mamund area and setting up camps in public schools and sports complexes. People also have received food and relief packages, Bajaur government official Saeed Khan said.

Sitting at a camp for displaced people in Khar, a main city in the Bajur district, Abid Ullah asked the government to quickly finish the operation so he could return home with his family.

Shah Mehmood, a resident from the town of Mamund, said that when the operation began, "the war planes came and they were flying above our heads.”

Mehmood said he left with with his family members for their safety and still had bitter memories of a similar 2009 military operation that displaced hundreds of thousands in Bajur.

Between 500 and 800 militants are hiding in Bajaur, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Authorities have not shared details of troop or militant casualties in the operation.

Anwarullah Khan in Khar, Pakistan, and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed.

Girls, who fled their homes with family members after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, walks carrying drinking water at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

Children, who with their family members fled their homes after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, stand at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

Internally displaced people, who fled their homes after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, walk at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

A boy, who fled his home with his family members after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, walks carrying drinking water at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

A man, who fled his home with his family members after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, rests at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

A police officer talks with internally displaced people, who fled their homes after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

Internally displaced people, who fled their homes after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, gather at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

Internally displaced people, who fled their homes after security forces launched a targeted operation against militants, stand at a camp set up in a sports complex at Khar, in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Qyass Khan)

Cumberland, Md. (AP) — Three members of the Zizians, a cultlike group linked to six deaths across the U.S., were granted permission Friday to work together in preparation for their upcoming trial on trespassing, weapons and drug charges.

Jack LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank are among a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists drawn together by radical beliefs about veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence.

Authorities have described LaSota, a transgender woman known as Ziz, as the apparent leader of the “extremist group." Since 2022, Zizians have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s subsequent killing, the deaths of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left another member and a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead.

LaSota, Zajko and Blank were arrested in February after a property owner said he found them living in box trucks on his land in Frostburg, Maryland. Zajko was charged in Vermont with lying on her application to buy the gun used to kill agent David Maland in January 2025, while LaSota faces separate federal charges of being an armed fugitive.

On her way into the courthouse Friday, LaSota accused prosecutors of pressuring the trio to commit perjury by accepting plea deals and said, “They're violating our speedy trial rights.” Friday's hearing was supposed to include discussions of the trio's motions to dismiss the charges and logistics of the trial that begins Feb. 9. Much of the agenda was postponed until Jan. 30 after Zajko indicated a desire to fire her attorney.

Earlier, Allegany County Circuit Court Judge Michael Twigg agreed to allow the trio to work together on their defense. Since their arrest, LaSota and Blank have been allowed to meet, but Zajko was kept apart in what she described as “absurdly difficult circumstances.”

When the prosecutor told the judge he had reason to believe the three had already been communicating amongst themselves, LaSota interjected, “In the car ride here!”

“We should be able to talk to each other without being recorded and without fear of our notes being intercepted," LaSota said.

“We're adults. We have work to do, and we want to do our work," Zajko said.

At one point, all three spoke up in support of each other.

“I repudiate any notion of protecting me from our codefendants,” LaSota said.

“I do, too,” said Zajko.

“As do I,” Blank said.

In the Vermont case, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Zizians member Teresa Youngblut, who has pleaded not guilty to murder for her alleged involvement in the shootout. Though she initially faced lesser charges, President Donald Trump's administration had signaled early on that more serious charges were coming as part of its push for more federal executions.

At the time of the shooting, authorities had been watching Youngblut and her companion, Felix Bauckholt, for several days after a Vermont hotel employee reported seeing them carrying guns and wearing black tactical gear. She is accused of opening fire on border agents who pulled the car over on Interstate 91. An agent fired back, killing Bauckholt and wounding Youngblut.

Two other members of the Zizians group are awaiting trial in connection with the 2022 attack on a landlord in California that left another member dead. Zajko has been called a person of interest in the deaths of her parents later that year, and another member of the group is charged with killing the landlord three days before the Vermont shooting.

—

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

In this image from video, Michelle Zajko, who is associated with a cultlike group known as Zizians that is linked to several deaths across the U.S., is escorted into court for a pretrial hearing on trespassing, gun and drug charges in Cumberland, Md., Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo)

In this image from video, Daniel Blank, who is associated with a cultlike group known as Zizians that is linked to several deaths across the U.S., is escorted into court for a pretrial hearing on trespassing, gun and drug charges in Cumberland, Md., Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo)

In this image from video, Jack LaSota, also known as Ziz, who is at the center of a cultlike group known as Zizians and linked to several deaths across the U.S., is escorted into court for a pretrial hearing on trespassing, gun and drug charges in Cumberland, Md., Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo)

In this image from video, Jack LaSota, also known as Ziz, who is at the center of a cultlike group known as Zizians and linked to several deaths across the U.S., is escorted into court for a pretrial hearing on trespassing, gun and drug charges in Cumberland, Md., Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo)