Islamabad, July 12 (DPA) Gunmen killed five police officers and a forest guard in Pakistan’s troubled North West Frontier Province, police said Sunday.

The security personnel were attacked Saturday night in a forest in the Mansehra district. They had gone there to recover a dead body after receiving information from an unidentified source.

“Five policemen and two forest guards were returning to the Shinkiyari town with the body when their vehicle was ambushed,” police officer Zulfikar Khan said.

“All policemen and a forest guard were killed in the intense gunfire, while the lone survivor suffered bullet wounds,” Khan added.

The gunmen also set the forest department’s flatbed truck on fire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from any group and police investigators said they were seeking investigating.

Mansehra borders the restive Malakand region, where the military is conducting a two-month offensive against the Taliban that the government claims killed more than 1,600 insurgents.

Most of the revenge attacks by the militants have been carried out on the troops, but police also became occasional targets.