Policeman killed in Swabi polio attack: officials

PESHAWAR: Gunmen opened fire on a polio vaccination team at Kala village in Swabi district killing a policeman, who was providing security to the team, officials said.

"The two-man team, after finishing the campaign in Kala, was heading towards a nearby village when three men armed with Kalashnikovs appeared from the sugarcane fields and opened fire," Swabi police chief Abdul Rashid Khan told AFP.

A police official escorting the duo was killed but the two team members were unhurt and the gunmen escaped, he said. "It seems the target was the policeman," Khan said.

On January 1, six women and a man working for a charity involved in polio vaccinations were shot dead in Swabi.