UPDATE - 7 killed in 3 militant attacks as Pakistan votes in high-stakes election

UPDATES WITH DETAILS OF TWO OTHER ATTACKS, CHANGES HEADER, DECK, EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Islamuddin Sajid and Aamir Latif

ISLAMABAD / KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - At least seven security personnel were killed on Thursday in three different suspected militant attacks in southwestern and northwestern Pakistan as people flocked to polling booths to elect a new parliament and four provincial assemblies.

In the first attack, security personnel were killed in the Kot Azam area of the Tank district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when unknown gunmen opened fire on a security team guarding polling staff.

Tank borders Afghanistan’s Waziristan district.

In another incident, at least four policemen were killed and several others injured in the same province when a police van was hit by an improvised explosive device.

“Militants targeted a police van and later also opened fire on their vehicle in the Kulachi area of the Dera Ismail Khan district during police patrols,” a local official told Anadolu on the phone on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In the third attack since morning, at least two security personnel were killed and nine were injured in a landmine blast in the southwestern Balochistan province.

The incident took place in the Kharaan district, the latest in an ongoing spate of militant attacks amid voting in Thursday’s general elections.