By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: An army lieutenant colonel and a soldier were martyred in a suicide bombing during an intelligence-based operation against militants in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said on Saturday, amid a surge in attacks blamed on groups operating from neighbouring Afghanistan.
The vehicle-borne suicide bomber targeted a security forces convoy in Bannu district while troops were acting on reports of militants’ presence, including a suicide attacker, according to a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army’s media wing. Security forces intercepted the bomber, averting a major attack on civilians or law enforcement in Bannu city, the ISPR said.
Troops located the militants during the operation and killed five of them in an intense exchange of fire. However, the militants then rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into one of the convoy’s vehicles, the statement said. Lieutenant Colonel Shahzada Gul Faraz, 43, from Mansehra, described by the ISPR as a brave commanding officer leading from the front, and Sepoy Karamat Shah, 28, from Peshawar, were killed in the blast.
The ISPR referred to the attackers as “Fitna al Khwarij,” a term used by Pakistani authorities for members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban. “Khwarij are continuing with their terrorist activities inside Pakistan using Afghan soil, violating the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan,” the ISPR said. “This clearly indicates that they have no link with Islam.”
The ISPR said said Afghan Taliban regime failed to prevent the use of Afghan territory for such attacks. “Pakistan will not exercise any restraint and operations would continue against the perpetrators of this heinous and cowardly act for justified retribution against Khwarij, irrespective of their location.” The military said its counter-terrorism campaign under the “Azm-i-Istehkam” vision, approved by the federal apex committee on the National Action Plan, would continue at full pace to eliminate foreign-sponsored terrorism. “Such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further reinforce our unwavering commitment to safeguarding our nation at all costs,” the ISPR said.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack in separate statements. “The supreme sacrifice of the martyrs is the nation’s asset,” Zardari said, adding that operations against Fitna al Khwarij would continue indiscriminately and with full force. “There will be no compromise on the public’s protection.”
Sharif described the attack as proof that terrorists had no religion and commended the security forces for foiling the militants’ plans by eliminating five of them and preventing major destruction in the city. He said the forces were achieving major successes under Azm-i-Istehkam and reaffirmed the state’s determination to eradicate all forms of terrorism.
Pakistan has seen a rise in militant attacks, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, targeting police, law enforcement and security forces, since the TTP ended a ceasefire with the government in 2022. Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of allowing TTP militants to use its soil for cross-border attacks and urged Kabul to take action. Earlier this week, Pakistan issued a demarche to the Taliban over a similar attack in Bajaur district that killed 11 soldiers.
In a separate development on Saturday, counter-terrorism police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa arrested a suspected female suicide bomber in Dera Ismail Khan district, saying they had averted a major incident. The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) said it acted on intelligence in the Sheikh Yousaf Khema Basti area, where a special weapons and tactics team raided a location and detained the woman, identified only by the initial “Z,” a resident of Waziristan.
During interrogation, she disclosed she had trained under a militant commander, Shah Wali alias Tariq Kochi, who is deceased, and had agreed to carry out a suicide attack, with a vest and target to be provided by another commander named Asim, the CTD said. Police recovered a pistol with ammunition, two mobile phones used for contact with a banned organisation, a power bank, a tablet device and other items, including a perfume bottle allegedly to mask explosives. “Across the province, indiscriminate operations will continue to crush terrorists’ evil intentions, prevent all forms of terrorism, and ensure full implementation of a zero-tolerance policy against anti-state elements,” the CTD said.
Female suicide bombers are relatively rare in Pakistan, though separatist militants in Balochistan have used women in recent attacks. Recent incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa include a terrorist ambush last week that killed four police personnel, including a station house officer, and a suicide blast on Jan. 23 at a wedding in Dera Ismail Khan that killed five people, including a peace committee leader, and injured 10 others.
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