Gunmen on motorcycles kill a Pakistani policeman and a…

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire Wednesday on police escorting a team of polio workers during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in northwest Pakistan, killing a police officer and a polio worker, police said.

According to local police chief Abdul Aziz, no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attack in a statement.

Pakistan launched a nationwide polio campaign on Monday amid a surge in militant attacks. The potentially fatal, debilitating disease mainly affects children under five and is usually spread through contaminated water.

On the same day, a roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying officers assigned to protect health workers administering polio vaccinations in the northwestern South Waziristan district of the same province, injuring six officers and three civilians.

The militant terrorist group “Islamic State” later claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack.

In Pakistan, anti-polio campaigns are regularly marred by violence. Militants attack vaccination teams and the police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

Since January, 17 new cases of polio have been reported in Pakistan, jeopardizing decades-long efforts to eradicate polio in the country. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped.