By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: Two Pakistani soldiers were martyred and six militants killed in a gunfight in the north-western district of Dera Ismail Khan, the military said on Sunday.
Troops moved on the Zarkani area on Saturday after receiving reports that militants were present, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army’s media wing. It said the militants belonged to the “Indian proxy, Fitna al-Khawarij”, the name the military uses for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which it describes as a proxy of India.
The ISPR credited the “meticulous” conduct of the operation for the outcome and said the six men were “sent to hell”. It also reported an “intense exchange of fire” in which two soldiers died: Naik Ghulam Murtaza, 36, from Gujrat district, and Sepoy Taseer Ahmed, 30, from Talagang district. The military said both “fought gallantly, paid the ultimate sacrifices and embraced shahadat”.
Weapons and ammunition were recovered from the dead militants, the military said. ISPR said they had taken part in numerous attacks on security forces and law enforcement agencies, and in the killing of civilians. A “sanitisation operation” was under way to hunt down any other militants in the area. The ISPR said the wider counterterrorism campaign, run under the Azm-e-Istehkam vision approved by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan, would continue “at full pace” against what it called foreign-sponsored and foreign-supported terrorism.
“Such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further reinforce our unwavering commitment of safeguarding our nation at all costs,” the statement said.
President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi each paid tribute to the two soldiers in separate statements on Sunday and offered condolences to their families.
Dera Ismail Khan, in the south of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has seen repeated violence. Gunmen shot dead four Federal Board of Revenue personnel near Abhaya Bridge in the district on 6 October. The raid follows a sharp rise in militant violence nationwide. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based think tank, counted 225 militant attacks in September, up 13 per cent from 199 in August and the highest monthly figure in 12 years. It was the third consecutive monthly increase. The PICSS figures show those attacks killed 259 people and injured 242. Balochistan recorded the most attacks of any province, with 131, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded 58.
Security forces have kept up their own operations. On 7 October, state media reported that 18 militants had been killed in separate engagements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, 13 of them in North Waziristan. In July, an attack on a check post in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed 15 people, including 12 soldiers. Provincial police said more than 115 security personnel and 85 militants were killed in the province in the first three months of the year.
Islamabad blames much of the violence on militants operating from Afghanistan and has repeatedly urged the Taliban government in Kabul to stop them using its territory. Kabul denies harbouring the TTP, and talks between the two countries in Istanbul ended without agreement after border fighting last October killed dozens of soldiers and civilians.
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