ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces foiled a suicide assault on a check post in the country’s northwest on Saturday, killing four militants, including a suicide bomber, the military said, a day after a deadly attack in the region claimed 15 lives.
The attempted attack in South Waziristan follows an assault on a joint police and military check post in neighboring Tank district on Friday that killed 12 soldiers, two policemen and a government official, highlighting a renewed wave of militant attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“The attackers sought to breach the check post security. However, their nefarious designs were checked and decisively foiled by the vigilant and resolute response of security forces,” the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said in a statement.
The military said troops destroyed the attackers’ explosives-laden vehicle outside the perimeter of the post, killing the suicide bomber, before pursuing the remaining three militants into a nearby compound where they were killed in a clearance operation.
It said there were no casualties among security forces.
ISPR statement blamed “Fitna Al Khwarij,” a term the Pakistani military uses for militants belonging to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in militant violence in recent years, with attacks mostly concentrated in its western provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan that border Afghanistan.
Islamabad says militant groups operate from sanctuaries across the border in the Afghan territory while repeatedly accusing India of backing them.
Both Kabul and New Delhi deny the allegations.
