Ground battle leaves 23 dead in Shawal

19 terrorists killed in skirmish that also claimed lives of 4 army men

MIRAMSHAH:

At least 19 terrorists were killed in a clash with army troops in Shawal Valley, the last bastion of terrorists in North Waziristan Agency, on Saturday as the final push in the densely forested strategic valley picked up pace. Four military men, including an officer, also died in the skirmish.

An intense exchange of fire took place after ground forces surrounded a group of fleeing terrorists in the Mangroti area near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Shawal, the military’s media wing, the ISPR, said in a brief statement.



“Nineteen terrorists were killed and several injured in [the] exchange of fire. Four security forces personnel, including an officer, also embraced Shahadat,” it added. “The ground operation in Shawal is progressing smoothly.” The martyred army men were identified as Captain Umair Abdullah Abbasi, Havaldar Hakim and sepoys Rashid and Hameed.

The deadly battle came three days after army chief General Raheel Sharif visited North Waziristan and gave the go-ahead for the final phase of Operation Zarb-e-Azb launched in mid-June 2014 against homegrown terrorists and their foreign cohorts.

Most parts of North Waziristan have been cleansed of terrorists and tens of thousands of tribesmen displaced by fighting have started returning to their homes in the area cleared by the military.

The military says the densely forested ravines of Shawal and Datta Khel have been used by terrorists for infiltration between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the final phase of the Waziristan offensive, remnants of terrorists will be dislodged from their hideouts; they will be isolated and their links with their abettors anywhere in the country will be indiscriminately severed.

Separately, a soldier was killed and two others were seriously wounded in homemade bomb attack in the Karwam area of Datta Khel tensil Saturday morning.
Suspected terrorists detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) near security forces in a village in Karwam, an area on the Pak-Afghan border.

One soldier was killed and two were injured, officials said. The injured were airlifted to a hospital in Miramshah, the agency headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, where medics said their wounds are life threatening.



Soon after the IED attack, security forces mounted a search operation in the area where a curfew-like situation was imposed. The political administration had clamped a curfew in some parts of Datta Khel tehsil on previous Thursday. It wasn’t immediately known why the curfew was imposed, but some officials say it was in anticipation of a decisive action against terrorists in the region.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2016.