A polio vaccination team in northwest Pakistan has been attacked by militants, who detonated a roadside bomb before opening fire on the team's convoy, the Telegraph reported.
Twelve members of the security escort for the team were killed by the attackers during the hour-long assault. The gunmen also attacked approaching rescuers on the scene, according to Khan Faraz, a local official.
Around a dozen wounded were taken to hospital, but others died on the road waiting for help to arrive, he said.
Another official said all the casualties were members of the "levies" or Khasadar, both locally-recruited, government-backed militias. They were providing security for the health workers, according to the Telegraph.
Polio vaccination teams are frequently attacked, as are government security forces.
It was unclear on who the target on this occasion was, a spokeswoman for UNICEF said.
"Some religious leaders have denounced the multi-billion dollar vaccination campaign as a cover for spying or a plot to secretly sterilize Muslim children," the Telegraph reported.
"Pakistan is one of the last three countries in the world where polio remains endemic and the only one of those three where reported cases are increasing. The disease can kill or paralyze within hours."
In a separate incident in western Baluchistan province, a roadside bomb killed three members of a government paramilitary force in Sorab, about 180 miles southwest of the provincial capital of Quetta.
Shortly afterwards, the paramilitary Frontier Corps announced it had killed ten men in Sui, 200 miles southeast of Quetta, the Telegraph reported.
An operation to search for militants who had bombed gas pipelines was being carried out by the Frontier Corps.
Baluchistan, a mineral-rich and dirt-poor province, is home to a bloody separatist insurgency, other militant groups, drug lords and government-backed death squads.
"In recent weeks the Pakistani government has tried to initiate peace talks with the Taliban, an umbrella group of militant factions operating in Pakistan," the Telegraph reported. "But peace talks failed after the Taliban bombed a bus of policemen and a faction of the Taliban claimed to have executed 23 kidnapped men from a government-run paramilitary force. Their bodies were never found."
The Telegraph continued, "The Pakistani military responded by bombing areas they identified as militant hideouts. A military spokesman said the attacks destroyed key hideouts and killed dozens of militants."
In North Waziristan, a tribal area along the border with Afghanistan that is considered the Taliban's main stronghold, the air operations have sparked speculation that a much-anticipated offensive may finally be launched.
