ISLAMABAD: At least 12 soldiers and six terrorists were killed in a clash between security forces and militants in Bannu district of Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said in a statement on Wednesday.
The fighting took place in Bannu’s Mali Khel area, where terrorists “attempted to attack a joint check post” of the Pakistani army and paramilitary troops, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army’s media affairs wing, said. It came a day after four people, including a tribal chief and a woman, were killed and as many injured when unknown armed men opened fire on a vehicle in Bannu.
The latest attack, according to the army’s handout, triggered an exchange of fire in which six terrorists were gunned down and the attempt to enter the post effectively thwarted by troops, forcing the terrorists to detonate an explosives-laden vehicle at the post’s perimeter wall. “The suicide blast led to the collapse of a portion of the perimeter wall and damaged the adjoining infrastructure, as a result of which 12 soldiers lost their lives,” the statement added.
There has been a sharp rise in the number of attacks targeting security forces, other law enforcement agencies, and security checkpoints, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Bannu has seen heightened militant violence of late, including the abductions of cops, attack on a prison, attack on a girls’ school, and shootouts that have left several security officials dead.
On Monday, over half a dozen policemen were abducted from a checkpost in an adjacent North Waziristan tribal district. They were later recovered by police, with the help of tribal elders.
Over the weekend at least eight security personnel were killed and three injured in fierce gun battles with militants in Tirah valley of Khyber tribal district, bordering Afghanistan.
On Saturday, at least seven security officials were killed and 18 others wounded in Baluchistan’s Kalat region in a pre-dawn terrorist attack on a checkpost. Earlier this month, at least 26 people, including 16 security personnel, lost their lives and 61 others were injured in a suicide bombing at a railway station in Quetta, Baluchistan’s capital.
