At least five policemen tasked with protecting a polio vaccination team were killed in a bomb attack on their vehicle in northwest Pakistan on Monday, according to government and police sources.

The blast took place in Bazur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the border with Afghanistan, where attacks have multiplied in recent months.

“A truck (…) carrying about 25 police officers guarding members of the vaccination campaign was targeted by an IED,” Anwar ul Haq, a senior civil administration official in Bazoor, told AFP.

According to him, five police officers were killed and 21 others were injured.

The account was confirmed by Kasif Zulfiqar, a senior police officer.

The attack was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, the Movement for the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP), which has for years targeted polio vaccination teams and the police who guarantee their safety.

Polio vaccination is generally viewed with suspicion in Pakistan, where conspiracy theories abound that include the vaccines being part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children.

Another theory wants the vaccines to contain pork fat and therefore be forbidden for Muslims.

Suspicion, fueled by ultraconservative Muslim religious leaders, became even more intense after the CIA organized a vaccination campaign that was actually a cover for the operation to find Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a 2011 operation by US special forces in Abbottabad (North).

Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world—the other being neighboring Afghanistan—where polio remains endemic. In these two countries, groups that make vaccines are often the target of Islamist attacks.

Six cases of the highly contagious disease, which causes a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause complete and irreversible paralysis, were reported in Pakistan in 2023. In 2022, 20 had been identified, according to the Pakistan National Polio Program.

Yesterday, a new vaccination campaign against the disease began in Pakistan. During the operation, the aim is to administer vaccines to 44 million children across the country within a week.

The country, which is preparing to hold elections on February 8, has been faced, especially since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021, with a rapidly deteriorating security situation, especially in areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad complains that most attacks are planned in Afghan territory, where the perpetrators have “safe havens”, which Kabul denies.

A six-member group of suicide bombers killed at least 23 soldiers in an attack on their base in northwestern Pakistan in December. It was the deadliest attack on the armed forces in years.