By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Security forces killed nine militants and turned back a coordinated nighttime attack on an army camp in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, authorities said Friday, in the latest sign of intensifying militant activity across the country’s northwest.
The assault took place Thursday night, when members of Fitna-al-Khawarij — the Pakistani government’s designation for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, detonated explosives and opened fire in an attempt to breach the camp through one of its gates, according to sources cited by the English-language daily Dawn. Security forces responded immediately, the sources said, containing the attackers outside the perimeter and preventing them from entering the facility.
A search-and-clearance operation was still underway inside the camp early Friday. Four soldiers were killed in the fighting, and wounded personnel were evacuated to Peshawar for treatment, they added. Initial reports confirmed nine militants dead. The TTP claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued after the clash.
The incident occurred three days after a bombing in the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed nine people, including two traffic police officers, and wounded more than 30 others. It followed by less than a week a May 9 suicide bombing at the Fateh Khel police post in Bannu district that left 15 police officers dead.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan, has recorded a sharp escalation in militant violence over the past year. The Centre for Research and Security Studies’ Annual Security Report 2025 documented a rise in provincial fatalities from 1,620 in 2024 to 2,331 last year, reflecting a broader resurgence of TTP activity after the group ended a ceasefire with the Pakistani government in late 2022.
The attack on the Bajaur army camp is among the most direct assaults on a military installation in the province in recent months. Pakistani officials have repeatedly described the TTP as the country’s most serious internal security threat, accusing the group of using Afghan soil as a sanctuary — a charge Kabul denies. No further details about the militants’ identities or the precise weapons used in the assault were released on Friday.
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