ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani soldier was killed and a militant was arrested following a gunfight between the two sides in northwest Pakistan, the Pakistani military said on Monday.
The exchange of fire took place in the North Waziristan district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.
“Own troops effectively engaged terrorists’ location and apprehended one terrorist in injured condition,” the ISPR said in a statement.
“However, during intense exchange of fire, Havildar Muhammad Zahir (age: 41 years, resident of District Mardan), having fought gallantly, embraced Shahadat (martyrdom).”
The development comes amid a spike in militant violence in Pakistan’s northwestern and southwestern regions that border Afghanistan, particularly after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called off its months-long truce with the government in Islamabad in November 2022.
The militant group, which is said to have sanctuaries in neighboring Afghanistan, is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
Earlier in the day, five policemen were killed and 22 others injured after a blast targeted a polio protection team in northwestern Pakistan, a police official confirmed. The outlawed TTP claimed responsibility for the blast.
A total of 306 militant attacks took place in Pakistan in 2023, including 23 suicide bombings, which killed 693 people and injured 1,124 others, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based research and advocacy think-tank.
The rise in attacks forced Pakistan to order expulsion of all illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans, by Nov. 1, 2023.
