By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army said on Sunday that 12 militants and Afghan Taliban fighters had been killed and one of its own soldiers was martyred when troops repelled an attempt to cross the border from Afghanistan into Kurram district.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, said troops in the north-western district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa detected a group of militants trying to cross the international border from Afghanistan. It said Afghan Taliban posts then opened fire to support the infiltration attempt.
“The skilful and precise engagement by vigilant troops resulted in the killing of 12 khawarij and Afghan Taliban,” the statement said. The soldier martyred was Naib Subedar Hidayat Aman, who the ISPR said died “fighting gallantly”. Security sources named him as a 40-year-old from Ghizer district.
“Khawarij” is the term the Pakistani state uses for fighters of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The ISPR said a sanitisation operation was under way in the area to find any remaining militants, whom it described as “Indian-sponsored”. Pakistan regularly accuses India of backing militant groups, a charge New Delhi rejects.
The army said the clash “vindicates” Islamabad’s “objective and factual stance regarding the willful abject failure of the Afghan Taliban regime to deny the use of Afghan soil” to the TTP. It accused the Taliban authorities of facilitating and patronising cross-border terrorism and said they had consistently failed to meet their international counter-terrorism obligations.
“The security forces of Pakistan remain resolute and unwavering in their commitment to defend the nation’s frontiers,” the ISPR said. It added that the counter-terrorism campaign under the Azm-e-Istehkam vision, approved by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan, would continue “at full pace”.
The clash came two days after the army said it killed seven militants in an intelligence-based operation in North Waziristan, another district on the Afghan frontier. Security sources reported a similar exchange in Kurram in late September, when Pakistani forces said they returned fire on Afghan Taliban border posts after another attempted infiltration.
Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in cross-border militant violence, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an independent think tank based in Islamabad, recorded 225 militant attacks nationwide in September, up 13.1 percent from 199 in August. It was the highest monthly total in 12 years and the third consecutive monthly rise.
Two of the month’s deadliest attacks were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On 18 September, an attack on the old Police Lines in Kohat killed 23 people and injured about 100. Eight militants were killed in an overnight clearance operation. On 27 September, 14 people, including two rescue workers, were killed and 35 injured in Dera Ismail Khan, where a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a police checkpost and then targeted an ambulance carrying bodies to hospital.
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have worsened over Pakistan’s accusation that the Taliban government shelters the militants behind the violence. Fighting in October last year ended with a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, under which Kabul pledged to curb militant activity against Pakistan. In February, Pakistan carried out air strikes inside Afghanistan and the two sides exchanged fire along the frontier. Last month Pakistan again struck what it called militant hideouts in Afghanistan.
Despite several rounds of talks, the two governments have not resolved their differences. The presence of militant groups on Afghan soil remains the main point of dispute.
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