Six people were killed in two separate incidents in Pakistan's restive northwest late on January 19, police and officials said.
In the first incident, a doctor involved in polio vaccination efforts in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province was shot dead late on January 19, police said.
Abdul Rahman was the coordinator of the polio inoculation campaign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Bajaur district bordering Afghanistan.
He was traveling in his car on Friday evening when he came under attack from unidentified armed men. Rahman was gravely wounded and died later in a hospital in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, officials said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Earlier this month, seven policemen who were protecting polio teams were killed in a roadside bomb attack claimed by the banned Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Islamist extremists frequently target polio inoculation teams and the security forces assigned to protect them, falsely asserting that immunization campaigns are Western plots to sterilize Muslim children.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio has not been completely eradicated.
In the second incident, in the North Waziristan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan unidentified assailants killed five men late on January 19 before fleeing the scene, police officials and locals told RFERL’s Radio Mashaal on January 20.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. North Waziristan police chief Rokhan Zeb said an investigation had been launched into the incident.
Police said the victims were non-local men who appeared to be truck drivers.
North Waziristan has long been a hotbed of militants operating on both sides of the border.
After the Afghan Taliban returned to power following the withdrawal of the U.S.-led forces from the war-wracked country, many TTP members have reportedly found sanctuaries in Afghanistan, using the country to launch more frequent attacks on Pakistani troops and civilians.
Pakistani military officials claim their mop-up operations in North Waziristan have cleared the area of the Taliban fighters and other militant groups.