Soldier killed in attack in S Waziristan

Two soldiers wounded, three militants killed in retaliatory fire.

A group of militants attacked a security check post in Ladha town in South Waziristan, triggering a gunfight which killed one soldier and wounded two others. This was the third attack on security forces in the area this month.

According to reports appearing in Irna, security forces used artillery to shell suspected positions of militants, sources said.

Security officials said that several militants were killed after the shelling. The militants are said to have attacked the post with rockets.

“One soldier was killed and two were injured in the attack, while three militants were also killed in the retaliatory fire,” a security official in Peshawar said.

Once notorious as a bastion of Pakistani Taliban and Uzbek fighters, Ladha was reduced to a shell of damaged buildings, piles of rubble and a ruined paramilitary fort after the military launched an operation in 2009. Three soldiers were also killed in a roadside bomb attack in the area on June 13.

On June 9, scores of militants attacked a security post in Makeen area of South Waziristan and killed at least eight soldiers.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2011.