Cross-border attack: 26 security personnel killed in Chitral

Militants from Afghanistan attack security check-posts early morning in Chitral.


Iftikhar Firdous August 27, 2011
Cross-border attack: 26 security personnel killed in Chitral

PESHAWAR: Twenty-six security personnel were killed and four others injured in a cross-border attack in the Chitral region on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Saturday.

Check-posts in the Langorbut and Kavti areas of Arandhi and Ursun and Mir Khani in Drosht came under attack in an early morning raid when militants crossed over at 4:00am from Nuristan province in Afghanistan, officials said.

“Firing is still continuing in the area and it is feared that casualties might rise,” said an official.

There were unconfirmed reports of people missing, but officials said the situation was still unclear and there was limited communication because of the geographical location of the area.

Local sources said there were reports of militant activity in the border region after intense fighting in Nuristan.

Last year, an Afghan official claimed that Maulana Fazlullah, runaway chief of Swat Taliban, had been killed in a clash between security forces and militants in the Barg Mittal area of Nuristan.

The government has eyed the Afghan border with much suspicion and blames the Afghan government of not taking action against militants in the border areas. It is believed that militants who escaped the military operation in FATA and Malakand took refuge in Kunar and Nuristan in Afghanistan.

Militants from across the border have consistently attacked check-posts and raided villages in Dir, Bajaur and Mohmand from April to July this year.

(Read: Operation in Mohmand: ‘90pc border areas under army control’)

COMMENTS (66)

gp65 | 13 years ago | Reply

@Steven: "These anti state criminals are sent through Afghanistan since India and Afghanistan send these criminals across the border to hurt Pakistanis."

TTP and Radio mullah are Pakistani citizens with whom the government had a done a peace treaty in 2009 called Nizam-e-Adl. Imran Khan actively supported that. When these people violated the treaty, Pak army stepped in to clean up Swat (which as we all know is in Pakistan and not Afghanistan). So to call these people Indian is heights of denial.

These are Pakistani insurgents that were able to escape to Afghanistan due to the border that has ben deliberately kept porous to facilitate the movement of Afghan Taliban who are viewed as strategic assets. Unfortunately that has unintended consequence of also helping TTP.

gp65 | 13 years ago | Reply

@Someone: "I have long maintained that the only way to decrease this menace is to actually go inside Afghanistan. Pak Air Force should start aerial campains on Afghan airspace, if NATO isnt going to do anything".

If you do this then in effect you would be permitting India to do the same also by setting a precedent. In other words, it would be legitimate for Indian fighters to come to Pakistan to take care of non-state actors in Pakistan. The fact is it wouldN OT be right for India to do that and it is NOT right for Pak to contemplate that.

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