PESHAWAR: One paramilitary soldier and 12 militants were killed during a gunbattle in Pakistan’s northwestern Tank district on Thursday after militants carried out a suicide blast at the Frontier Corps (FC) headquarters in the area, a police official with direct knowledge of the development said.
The attack took place in district Tank’s Tehsil Jandola, located in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province bordering Afghanistan.
No group has claimed responsibility for the incident but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban or the Tehreek-e-Talban Pakistan (TTP).
“An officer on duty shot the suicide bomber driver of an explosive-laden vehicle which detonated the blast,” the Tank district police officer told Arab News on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.
“One soldier was martyred, twelve terrorists were killed, two FC personnel injured while four civilians have sustained normal injuries during the clearance operation,” he added.
The police officer said the situation was “under control” following the FC’s clearance operation.
The attack takes place amid rising militant attacks in Pakistan, especially in KP province bordering Afghanistan. KP has suffered a surge in militant attacks since November 2022 when a fragile truce between the state and the TTP collapsed.
Pakistan says the takeover of Kabul by the Afghan Taliban in 2021 has emboldened the group as it is able to operate out of and launch attacks from safe havens in neighboring Afghanistan, whose government denies the charges.
The TTP has carried out some of the deadliest attacks against Pakistan’s security forces and civilians since 2007 in its bid to impose its strict version of Islamic law in the country.
