DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – Militants firing from inside Afghanistan killed no less than 5 Pakistani soldiers at a border put up in northwestern Kurram district on Sunday, the Pakistan military mentioned, the second such attack since Taliban militants took over Kabul in August.
The military mentioned it retaliated, inflicting heavy casualties, however impartial affirmation was not instantly doable as a result of the districts alongside the mountainous Afghan border are off limits to journalists and human rights organisations.
“Militants from inside Afghanistan across the international border opened fire on Pakistani troops in Kurram district,” the military’s media wing mentioned in a press release.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistan Taliban, which renewed an allegiance with the Afghan Taliban after the autumn of Kabul, claimed accountability for Sunday’s attack.
The Afghan authorities denied the firing had come from inside Afghan territory.
“We guarantee different nations, particularly our neighhours, that nobody shall be allowed to make use of Afghan land towards them,” Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities, informed Reuters.
The Afghan Taliban late final yr performed the position of facilitator in talks between the TTP and the Pakistan authorities.
Those talks fell aside in December, since when there have been a sequence of assaults on Pakistani forces alongside the border.
The military assertion mentioned Pakistan strongly condemns the usage of Afghan soil by militants for actions towards Pakistan and expects that interim Afghan authorities to halt such acts in future.
Pakistani safety forces had only a day earlier accomplished a three-day operation towards militants who had attacked two military bases in the southern province of Balochistan. At least 9 soldiers have been killed in these assaults.
“As per its promises, Taliban government should stop such cross-border militants attacks,” Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, Pakistan’s inside minister, mentioned in a press release.
(Writing by Raza Hassan in Karachi; Editing by Nick Macfie)
