Peshawar: A powerful roadside bomb struck a police vehicle Friday in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s northwest near the Afghan border, killing a city police chief and two junior officers, officials said.

The bombing took place in the city of Hangu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as the officers were heading to a police station that had been attacked less than an hour earlier, local police chief Adam Khan said. He gave no further details.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the violence.

The latest assaults came a day before Pakistan and Afghanistan are scheduled to hold a second round of peace talks in Istanbul, following an initial meeting in Qatari capital Doha on Oct. 19. Those talks, brokered by Qata

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