Eight soldiers were killed and seven police officers kidnapped during two attacks Monday evening in northwest Pakistan, one of which was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, police and intelligence officials reported to AFP on Tuesday.
Monday evening, “armed men attacked a border guard checkpoint in the Tirah region”, in the mountainous province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan, said an intelligence officer under cover of the anonymity.
“The exchanges of fire between the two parties lasted several hours,” he continued, reporting “eight soldiers killed” and “nine attackers killed and seven others injured.”
The Pakistani Taliban movement, the TTP, trained for combat in Afghanistan and which claims to have the same ideology as the Taliban, who have returned to power in Kabul since 2021, claimed responsibility for this attack. In a press release, the TTP claims to have responded to a search by security forces targeting one of its fighters.
Upsurge in TTP attacks
In a separate and so far unclaimed attack, “seven police officers were kidnapped and taken to an unknown destination,” a senior police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. “Armed men surrounded a police checkpoint in the Bannu region,” also in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, “and seized police weapons,” he added. A second police officer, Muhammad Zia ud-Din, confirmed the kidnapping of the seven police officers to AFP.
On its border with Afghanistan, Pakistan is experiencing an increase in TTP attacks. His men killed ten police officers on October 25.
Attacks by Islamists or separatists against Pakistani security forces also occur elsewhere in the country of 240 million inhabitants. Seven soldiers were killed on Saturday by Baloch separatists in southwest Pakistan, a week after an attack by the same movement that left 26 dead, including 14 soldiers, in a train station in Balochistan.
