PESHAWAR Four security officials were killed and twenty-six wounded in a rocket cum suicide attack on a police station in the troubled northern Swat region on Thursday, a senior police official said.

The official told Dawn that the City Police Station in Mingora, district headquarters of the restive Swat region, came under a barrage of rocket propelled attack at around 1.30 am.

The rocket attack was followed by a suicide bombing.

`The bomber banged an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of the police station. But the casualties were mostly caused by the rocket attack,` Safwat Ghayyur, Additional Inspector General of Police, Investigation, told Dawn in Peshawar.

The twin-attacks left three men of Frontier Constabulary and a policeman dead, while among the wounded were fourteen FC and 12 policemen, he said.

The once-tourist hotspot of Pakistan has seen a surge in violence after a May peace agreement between the militants and the secular-nationalist Awami National Party collapsed two months later.

Both sides accuse each other of going back on their words. The military has since been battling to regain the control of the mountainous region with heavy use of artillery and helicopters gunships.