The Pakistani military claims to have killed three militants in an area of North Waziristan close to its border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military reported on Thursday that at least six soldiers had been killed in a fire battle with Taliban fighters in the country’s northwest, close to the Afghan border.
The military issued a statement saying, “A fire exchange took place between terrorists and our own troops,” describing the incident that occurred in North Waziristan district, a traditional stronghold of the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organization of several armed groups.
It further reported that three fighters had been killed in the army’s engagement with them and that troops were still combing the region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for any other assailants.
The message was vague, and it was not apparent who was responsible for the attack, but this is a stronghold of the Paki Taliban, who have been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians over the course of decades.
The PM of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, mourned the “martyrdom” of soldiers
To safeguard the country from the scourge of terrorism and militancy, our security forces, police, and intelligence community have made supreme sacrifices. In a tweet, Sharif wrote, “My deepest condolences to the bereaved families and prayers for the departed souls.”
On the same day as this murder, at least seven educators in the Kurram tribal district of the same province were killed in what appears to have been a sectarian attack.
A new offensive against armed organizations was proclaimed by Pakistan after a rise in attacks, including a mosque bombing in February that killed more than a hundred people.
In the recent weeks, the military has conducted many raids on rebel hideouts in the mountainous territory bordering Afghanistan, killing and arresting dozens of combatants.
Afghanistan as a Haven of Safety
Islamabad claims that the fighters, who seek to establish a strict interpretation of Islamic law in Pakistan, have a safe haven in Afghanistan, an allegation that Kabul strongly refutes.
On Friday, Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi of Afghanistan’s Taliban government will fly into Islamabad to meet with his Pakistani and Chinese counterparts. The conversations will likely cover topics that have not been made public.
A suicide bomber recently drove into a military base camp outside the Lakki Marwat tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing three troops a week before this incident.
Several attacks against the state have been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban since the group revoked a ceasefire brokered by the Afghan Taliban and peace talks with the government in Islamabad broke down last year.
The Taliban in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan are two distinct organizations with a same philosophy.
The government claims that hundreds of armed rebels and their leaders were released from prison as a result of the peace talks, giving them the opportunity to regroup and launch new attacks.
The former government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, according to Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, had the “wrong approach” toward the Pakistan Taliban.
“Its policy of appeasement towards the Taliban has created problems for the people of Pakistan,” Zardari said of the previous administration in an interview with Al Jazeera on January 23.
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