Militants kill 8 soldiers, abduct 7 cops in Pakistan

NN Online:

Authorities in northwestern Pakistan reported on Monday that militants ambushed a military convoy near the border with Afghanistan and killed at least eight soldiers.

The attack occurred in Khyber, a volatile border district in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, targeting soldiers returning to their base after a counterinsurgency operation, reports Voice of America.

The ambush left at least three soldiers injured, one of whom is in “serious” condition, multiple security officials said. The Pakistan military’s media wing did not immediately comment on the deadly attack or the reported casualties that followed.

Separately, dozens of heavily armed men stormed a security outpost in the province’s militancy-hit Bannu district on Monday evening, taking seven armed police officers hostage. Police officials in the area reported that an operation to track down the assailants and rescue the abducted personnel was under way.

Several districts in the Pakistani border province, including Khyber and Bannu, routinely experience attacks on security forces, which are mostly attributed to or claimed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an outlawed militant group.

TTP-led militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ethnic Baloch separatists in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan, have lately intensified their attacks.

The militant violence has killed more than 1,100 Pakistani security forces and civilians nationwide so far this year, according to data reported by the Islamabad-based, independent Center for Research and Security Studies.

TTP is declared a terrorist group by the United Nations, while the Baloch Liberation Army, which is believed to be the largest insurgent group in Balochistan, is designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States.