PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police say a senior police officer has died while defusing a roadside bomb in the country's northwest.

Senior police officer Fazal Mola Dad says Hakam Khan had played a key role in battling militants in the northwestern city of Peshawar. He had defused dozens of bombs in the past several years.

Dad says Khan rushed to the city's Matni neighborhood on Friday after being alerted that insurgents had planted two bombs near a road, which is used by security convoys to travel to the Khyber tribal region.

He says Khan successfully defused one bomb but while he was working on the second one, it exploded.

Peshawar is considered the gateway to Pakistan's tribal regions, and violence from the regions often spills over into the city.