2 Pakistani police officers guarding polio workers killed by suspected militants

Suspected militants riding a motorcycle shot and killed two police officers assigned to protect polio workers during a door-to-door vaccination campaign on Tuesday in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.

The drive-by shooting in Mohmand, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, also wounded a third officer. The police officers were travelling to a nearby village to guard vaccination teams when they came under fire, police officer Ayaz Khan said.

The attackers fled the scene. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups regularly target anti-polio drives and police protecting health workers, falsely claiming that polio vaccination campaigns are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.