PESHAWAR: Militants abducted 12 police officers in a pre-dawn attack Sunday in a tribal region where a suicide attack on a mosque this week killed around 50 worshippers, officials said.

The militants surrounded a tribal police check post 35 kilometres southeast of Peshawar city in Khyber Agency before driving the captured officers away, local government official Rahat Gul told AFP.

No one has claimed responsibility, but another official blamed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for the abduction.

The kidnapping came after Pakistani security forces on Saturday arrested four Taliban insurgents and destroyed two suspected compounds in the nearby town of Bara after Friday's bombing, one of the bloodiest recent attacks in Pakistan.