PESHAWAR: Following a recent approval by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Policy Board, rules and regulations have been put in place to raise Special Combat Unit, a highly-trained, well-equipped strike force to carry out intelligence-based targeted operations against terrorists in the province.

“The force, comprising 400 personnel, will be selected from the police’s elite force whose members will be put to rigorous medical, psychological and physical tests and will be exempted from routine policing duties,” said an official statement issued by the office of KP Inspector General of Police Zulfiqar Hameed.

According to it, the unit’s operational model has been designed in line with international standards.

It will consist of companies of 45 personnel each, deployed on the frontline in the province’s most sensitive regions for a period of 90 days for carrying out a joint operation under the command of the district police officer or the commander of the police’s CTD.

At the end of the period, the personnel will be sent for a 30-day mandatory training at the Elite Police Training Centre in Nowshera district to acquire further combat skills and share their field experiences with other cadets.

The IGP said that the enforcement of the SCU Regulatory Rules was a milestone in the history of the provincial police and would contribute to effective operations against enemies of peace in the province.

“We are not limiting our personnel to conventional weapons, instead, we are equipping them with the most modern demands of the era, such as the drone technology, sniper skills, and hand-to-hand combat expertise, to make them an invincible force,” he said in a statement.

Mr Hameed added that eradication of all forms of militancy from the province and the protection of public life and property remained police’s priority.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2026