PESHAWAR: A series of militant attacks across Pakistan Tuesday left at least 27 people dead, including two officials overseeing security for a polio vaccination drive.

Pakistan’s armed forces launched a major offensive against militant strongholds in June which stemmed the tide of near-daily attacks the country had endured in recent years, but violence now appears to be on the rise again.

Five separate strikes hit on Tuesday, including two roadside bombs, an attack on a military post and a car bombing targeting a judge.

At least five soldiers and 15 militants were killed in a gunfight after insurgents attacked a checkpost of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) in Orakzai, one of seven restive semi-autonomous tribal regions on the Afghan border.

“More than 50 militants attacked the checkpost. Two soldiers embraced shahadat (martrydrom) while 15 terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire,” a senior security official said.

Six soldiers sustained injures in the attack, he said, adding that the militants fled after the FC troops retaliated.

Another security official confirmed the incident and casualties.

In Bajaur, another tribal area on the Afghan border, a roadside bomb killed two security officials responsible for security arrangements for an ongoing polio vaccination drive, local government official Sohail Khan said.

The officials were not guarding polio teams themselves, but were checking arrangements in the area, where Taleban militants are active, he added.

Polio cases have soared to a 14-year high in Pakistan this year, with 235 confirmed infections — more than double the total for the whole of 2013.

A car bomb targeting a judge of the anti-terrorist court Nazeer Ahmad Lango killed a 10-year old boy and wounded 25 in the southwestern city of Quetta, the capital of restive Baluchistan province, police said.

Resource-rich Baluchistan is home to a long-running separatist conflict that was revived in 2004, with nationalists seeking to stop what they see as the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and alleged rights abuses.

Bus crash kills 57

At least 57 people, including 18 children, were killed Tuesday when a bus collided with a goods truck loaded with coal in southern Pakistan, officials said.

The accident happened near the city of Khairpur, 450 km north of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

Pakistan has an appalling record of fatal traffic accidents due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving. Crashes killing dozens of people are not uncommon.

Television footage of the aftermath of Tuesday’s crash showed the mangled bus lying on its side, its roof completely sheared off and battered green seats scattered around the scene.

Doctor Jaffer Soomro said that 57 people were killed and 21 injured. Police said there were 17 women and 18 children among the dead. “The accident was so severe that all of them died at the spot,” except for one child who died undergoing treatment in hospital, Soomro told AFP by phone from Khairpur Civil Hospital.