Mohmand violence: Security forces repulse cross-border attacks

Two officials injured in check post assault; one official killed by IED

PESHAWAR/ ISLAMABAD: A security official was killed and at least three others injured in multiple attacks, including a roadside blast, in an area of Mohmand Agency bordering Afghanistan between late Saturday night and Sunday morning, senior security officials said.

According to the officials, suspected militants from across the border in Afghanistan fired mortars at a security check post in Mohmand Agency’s Bayzai sub-division late Saturday night. Two Pakistani security officials were wounded in the barrage, they said, adding that one of the wounded officials was a major.



The check post came under attack once again Sunday morning, this time with heavy weapons, the officials said. “Both attacks were successfully repulsed. The militants faced heavy casualties,” one security official told The Express Tribune.

Later in the morning, an improvised explosive device (IED) blew up near a Frontier Corps bomb-disposal unit which was patrolling the Soran area of Bayzai, security officials said. One FC official was killed and another one was injured in the blast, they told The Express Tribune.

The IED was possibly planted by the militants while they were retreating following the attack on the Bayzai security check post, they added.

Officials of the Mohmand Agency political administration also confirmed the cross-border attacks. Talking to The Express Tribune, they said security was put on high alert across the agency following the attacks, especially at entry and exit points. A massive search operation for the facilitators of the militants was also carried out, they said.

Meanwhile, the officials wounded in the attacks were later airlifted to Peshawar and are currently being treated at the Combined Military Hospital.



The Jamaatul Ahrar, a splinter group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attacks on security forces in Bayzai. The group admitted that four Taliban fighters were injured in the exchange of fire with security forces.

Kabul claims soldier killed in shelling

Afghan officials on Sunday accused Pakistani forces of shelling a border post in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and claimed an Afghan soldier was killed in the alleged attack.

“Pakistani troops fired on a border post in [Nangarhar’s] Goshta district early Sunday,” Seddiq Siddiqi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s interior ministry, told reporters in Kabul.

Afghanistan’s Tolo TV quoted an Afghan border police commander as saying that the clashes started late Saturday. The commander claimed Pakistani forces fired a number of missiles into Goshta and said Afghan security forces responded. He added that one Afghan soldier was killed and two others were wounded in the alleged clash, which according to him ended on Sunday morning.

Pakistan Army has not yet commented on the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th,  2016.