Four soldiers of the Pakistan Army were martyred and one other was injured in two separate incidents of firing by militants near the Afghan border, the military’s media wing said on Saturday.
The first incident occurred in North Waziristan tribal district, where miscreants opened fired on a routine patrolling party of security forces near Abba Khel area of Spinwam tehsil late on Friday night, according to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
As a result, 23-year-old Sepoy Akhtar Hussain, a resident of District Baltistan, embraced martyrdom.
“In exchange of fire, two miscreants [were] killed,” the ISPR said.
In a separate incident in Dir, suspected terrorists opened fire from across the Pak-Afghan border on Pakistan Army troops who were busy in border fencing.
“3 soldiers embraced shahadat while 1 got injured” in the incident, the military’s media wing said.
The personnel martyred in the second incident include Lance Naik Said Amin Afridi, aged 28, a resident of District Khyber; Lance Naik Muhammad Shoaib Swati, a 31-year-old resident of District Manshera; and Sepoy Kashif Ali, aged 22, a resident of District Nowshera.
The attacks come less than two months after 10 Pakistani armed forces personnel were martyred by militants, six of them in a cross-border attack in North Waziristan district and four others in an assault in Kech district of Balochistan. The ambush in North Waziristan was claimed by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
The Foreign Office had last month asked Afghanistan to fulfil its commitment for the elimination of terrorist hideouts along the Pak-Afghan border.
“As a matter of policy, Pakistan does not fire across the Pak-Afghan border. Cross-border attacks by terrorists on army/FC posts are responded to in self-defence only,” a foreign ministry statement had said at the time.
Pakistani forces have conducted a series of operations against militant groups in the tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over the years. While officials say the area has largely been pacified, small attacks continue to take place.
