![Injured policemen receive treatment at a hospital following the suicide bombing of a police truck in Quetta on November 30. [Banaras Khan/AFP]](/cnmi_pf/images/2022/11/30/39150-000_32wf6gb-739_416.webp)
QUETTA, Pakistan -- Three people were killed and 23 injured Wednesday (November 30) when a suicide bomber targeted a police truck in western Pakistan, an attack claimed by Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The TTP earlier this week called off a shaky months-long ceasefire agreed with Islamabad and ordered its members to resume attacks across the nation.
Senior police official Azhar Mehesar told AFP that Wednesday's blast targeted a security force preparing to escort polio vaccinators in the city of Quetta, and those killed "include a policeman, a woman and a child".
In a statement, the TTP said one of its militants detonated a car bomb near a customs post to avenge the killing of founding member Umar Khalid Khurasani during the truce.
Since last year, Pakistan has seen a 50% surge in militant attacks, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS).
Most of these attacks have been focused in the western provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which neighbour Afghanistan.
Earlier this month six police officers were killed by the TTP in a shootout while they patrolled the village of Shahab Khel, 100km from the Afghan border.
Polio vaccination teams are routinely escorted by police in the western regions, and the TTP has made a habit of ambushing officers as they travel into those restive remote areas.
Pakistan officials on Monday launched a week-long immunisation campaign aiming to inoculate over 13 million children living in "high-risk districts".
