PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Pakistani troops repelled a cross-border raid from Afghanistan by hundreds of Pakistan Taliban militants on Wednesday, a senior official said, with extra forces rushed to the rugged frontier region.
Pakistan’s home-grown Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement has been emboldened by the return to power of the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021, and Islamabad regularly accuses its neighbour of harbouring militants – a charge it denies.
“They were in (the) hundreds and were armed with light and heavy weapons. We were ready to face the attack, and exchange of fire continued for some four hours,” Mr Mohammad Ali, deputy commissioner of Chitral district, told AFP.
In a statement, the Pakistan military’s public relations wing said “a large group of terrorists equipped with (the) latest weapons” attacked two outposts in the area.
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said four Pakistani soldiers were killed, while “12 terrorists were sent to hell”.
“We were monitoring their movements in areas close to the border for two or three days,” Mr Ali said.
“Informers have also sent us information about the militant group’s movement.”
In a statement, the TTP claimed to have seized two military posts in the Bomburit area of Chitral, which is about 200km north-west of the capital Islamabad.
The Pakistan Taliban shares a common hardline Islamist ideology with its Afghan counterpart.
The group was founded in 2007, when militants who fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan splintered off to focus their insurgency against Islamabad as payback for supporting America’s post-9/11 invasion there.
Police official Karim Khan told AFP that security forces had sealed entry to Chitral, a rugged area of steep hills and valleys popular with domestic tourists.
Another official said troops and paramilitary forces had been rushed in to reinforce the district.
“Sanitisation of the area is being carried out to eliminate any other terrorists,” ISPR said.
At the height of its power, the TTP held sway over swathes of mountain communities, enforcing austere Islamic law, and patrolling land just 140km north of the capital.
But the Pakistani military came down hard on it after 2014 when TTP militants raided a school for children of army personnel and killed nearly 150 people, most of them pupils.
Its fighters were largely routed into neighbouring Afghanistan, but now Islamabad claims the TTP is using Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a foothold to stage assaults across the border.
Over the first 12 months of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Pakistan witnessed a 50 per cent surge in militant attacks focused on the western border provinces, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies. AFP
