Two Pakistan Army officers killed in gunfire with armed militants

PTI

Peshawar, February 27

Two Pakistan Army officers were killed after armed militants attacked a security checkpost in the country’s restive north-west region bordering Afghanistan, the military’s media affairs wing said on Monday.

The militants opened fire at a security check post in Spinwam region in Pakistan’s North Waziristan district on Sunday, prompting a swift response from the military, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

“Two militants were killed in the gunfire, while two others were apprehended with ammunition,” ISPR said.

Two Pakistan Army officers were also killed in the gunfire, it said.

The military’s media wing said the area was being combed to flush out the militants.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned the attack and paid condolences to the families of the two Pakistan Army officers.

No terror outfit has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Sunday’s incident comes amid an uptick in terror attacks across the country. Pakistan has been hit by a wave of terrorism, mostly in the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but also in Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh province.

On January 30, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during the afternoon prayers in a mosque in Peshawar, killing 101 people and injuring more than 200 others.  In November last year, the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called off an indefinite ceasefire agreed with the government in June 2022 and ordered its militants to carry out attacks on the security forces.

Pakistan hoped that the Afghan Taliban after coming to power would stop the use of their soil against Pakistan by expelling the TTP operatives, but they have apparently refused to do so at the cost of straining ties with Islamabad.

Last week, the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan for the first time proposed to Pakistan that it should bear the cost of disarming and rehabilitating the outlawed TTP members and their families numbering more than 30,0000 from the Pak-Afghan border areas.

The TTP, set up as an umbrella group of several militant outfits in 2007, called off a ceasefire with the federal government and ordered its militants to stage terrorist attacks across the country.