Five Pakistani Policemen Killed in Taliban Attack

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Suspected Taliban militants stormed a police station in a town in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least five policemen, police and witnesses said.

Armed with hand grenades and automatic weapons, at least three assailants attacked the police station in Kulachi, a small town close to the volatile tribal region of South Waziristan.

"They threw grenades and opened indiscriminate firing as they stormed into the police station," local police chief Imtiaz Shan told Reuters, adding that at least five policemen had died.

Police and paramilitary reinforcements were sent to take back control of the police station.

Mohammad Raees, a witness, said the three attackers were riding a motorbike. "One of them was wearing a burqa and threw the burqa away as they attacked the police station."

South Waziristan is a major al-Qaida and Taliban sanctuary on the Afghan border.

Militants have stepped up attacks, many of them on Pakistani security forces, in what they say is retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs in a raid in the garrison town of Abbottabad last month.

They have attacked a heavily guarded navy base in Karachi, killed nearly 100 people in twin suicide bombings on a paramilitary compound in the northwest and carried out a car bomb attack on a U.S. consulate convoy in the city of Peshawar.