Four security personnel were killed while five others were injured after a bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying security forces in South Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Aljazeera reported.
According to Aljazeera, no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) armed group, also known as Pakistan Taliban, turned violent in the region since its ally, the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, seized power in 2021. Pakistan's military in a statement on Thursday confirmed the "martyrdom" of four officers and also said that in response to the attack security forces killed five "Khwarij", a term used by the military for the Pakistan Taliban. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed "grief and sorrow" over the death of the soldiers and said, "Our war against terrorists will continue until the complete elimination of terrorism from the country." On Thursday, a mortar fired by armed fighters landed near a road in the Tirah Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing two children who were going to school, police said. Islamabad has accused Kabul's rulers of failing to stop rebels from attacking Pakistan from over the border. Last month, Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on 10 Pakistani police officers who were killed at a security checkpoint, Aljazeera reported. Pakistan saw 785 armed attacks during the first 10 months of 2024, resulting in 951 deaths and 966 injuries, reflecting a persistently high level of violence across the country, according to a report by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank. As per Aljazeera, Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong in Islamabad on Thursday to brief him about the investigation into an attack on Tuesday where a guard shot and wounded two Chinese nationals at a textile mill in Karachi, allegedly over a private dispute. (ANI)
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