PESHAWAR: Three Levies personnel were killed and three others were injured, including deputy tehsildar Shaibzada, in a bombing that targeted a security forces vehicle in Bajaur Agency's Salarzai tehsil on Tuesday.

The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Speaking to Dawn, TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurrsani said that the Taliban had targeted Shaibzada in Bajaur Agency's Salarzai tehsil by planting an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

Levies personnel were on polio security patrol when the IED blast took place. As a result of the explosion, the vehicle was completely destroyed. Three Levies personnel were killed and as many others sustained injuries.

Bajaur, a tribal region in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), is governed by tribal laws.

An extremist insurgency led by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) plagues the region and the area is known to be infested with militants, including those from Al Qaeda and other armed extremist organisations.

In October 2014, a militant outfit distributed pamphlets in Bajaur's tehsil Khar area warning polio workers against participating in the "anti-Islamic" polio vaccination drive, and vowing to attack all those participating in it.

The Pashto language pamphlet pasted on walls in various parts of Haji Lawang and Muslim Bagh area of Khar says that those supporting the polio drive or participating in vaccination would be targeted.

Explore: War on polio: Is it all spiraling out of control for Pakistan?

Fata — which has never been able to vaccinate its targeted population of around nine million since the global polio eradication initiative began in Pakistan in the mid 1990s — has become a challenge for the government and UN agencies, which are finding it extremely hard to address the issue of reaching unvaccinated children.

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where the polio virus is still endemic, but efforts to stamp out the crippling disease have been hit by repeated attacks on health teams.

A recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report said Pakistan was responsible for nearly 80 per cent of polio cases reported globally.