Four policemen and two private security guards were killed in an attack by dozens of gunmen on a Hungarian-owned gas and oil extraction facility in northwestern Pakistan, officials said on May 23.

Since the Taliban regained control of the neighboring Afghan government in 2021, militancy in Pakistan has increased, with assaults mostly directed at security personnel and foreign entities that are thought to be exploiting the country.

About 50 fighters attacked a site owned by the Budapest-headquartered MOL Group around midnight in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, district police chief Asif Bahadur told AFP.

Bahadur said the attackers came from the nearby North Waziristan district, which borders Afghanistan and has historically been a hive of militancy.

"They were armed with light and heavy weapons and fired mortar shells, killing six security personnel at the main entrance" to the remote site near the Afghan border, said Bahadur.

Bahadur said the dead included four members of the paramilitary police assistance force the Frontier Constabulary and two Pakistani private security guards for the firm.

Asif Bahadur told that the attackers had attempted to kidnap MOL employees, but were eventually repelled after an hours-long gunfight.

"The exchange of fire continued for more than an hour. Police forced the militants to flee," Bahadur added.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the MOL factory in the Hangu neighborhood close to the Afghan border, local officials suspect it was carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, also known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The MOL Group confirmed the death toll but said none of its employees were killed.

Two wells near the attack site have "been temporarily shut down by remote access and the wells are now secured", it said in a statement.

Noor Wali Khan, a second district police official, confirmed the attack and the death toll.

The MOL Group has operated a Pakistan subsidiary since 1999 and employs 400 people in the country, according to their website.

"We are assessing the information," a spokesman for the Hungarian embassy in Islamabad said, adding that no diplomatic action was planned.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), often known as the Pakistan Taliban, was established in 2007 by militants who broke away from the Afghan Taliban to concentrate their attacks on Islamabad for supporting the American invasion.

Image source: Hindustan Times