ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan army brigadier was killed in an “encounter” with militants in the country's restive northwest, the Pakistani military said on Tuesday, in the latest among a number of casualties amid a surge in militant attacks in the South Asian country.
The encounter took place in Angoor Adda area of the South Waziristan district, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military's media wing, said in a statement.
Barki was currently serving in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's premier intelligence agency.
"Brigadier Mustafa Kamal Barki from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), while leading the encounter from the front, embraced Shahadat (martyrdom)," the ISPR said on Tuesday.
"Brigadier Barki and his team put up a valiant resistance against the terrorists during the encounter and the officer sacrificed his life for peace of the motherland."
Seven other soldiers were injured in the intense exchange of fire.
An undated file photo of Brigadier Mustafa Kamal Barki. (Photo courtesy: social media)
The attack comes amid a surge in militant violence in Pakistan in recent months, particularly after the Pakistani Taliban, or the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), called off their fragile ceasefire with the government in November.
The militant group has since targeted police and security forces in the country's northwestern and southwestern regions that border Afghanistan.
A deadly suicide bombing killed more than 80 people, mostly police officials, at a mosque inside a heavily guarded police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar in January.
In December last year, Pakistani Taliban inmates seized a counterterrorism facility in the northwestern Bannu district, which had to be taken back after a military operation.
The TTP is a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan more than a year ago. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has emboldened Pakistani militants, whose top leaders and fighters are said to be hiding across the border.
