Police, FC fend off surprise militant attack

PESHAWAR: After an hour of intense retaliatory fire, Sarband police and Frontier Constabulary (FC) contingents managed to fend off a surprise attack by Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) militants on their outpost on Tuesday night, police said.

Dozens of LeI militants armed with heavy weapons attacked the Manzoor Shaheed check post in the jurisdiction of the Sarband police station, completely taking police by surprise.

“This is one of the check posts established at the Khyber Agency border to stop militant infiltration into the settled district and that is why it has come under repeated militants attacks in the past year,” said SHO Fazale Mula, adding that after one hour of fighting the militants, taking advantage of the complete darkness, retreated towards safety.

“It is pitch-black out there and they used it to attack us and escape,” he said adding that there had been no police casualties.