Restive frontiers: Kurram convoy attack leaves six soldiers dead

10 FC personnel wounded in the IED attack claimed by Ansarul Mujahideen.

HANGU:

At least six paramilitary soldiers were killed and 11 injured in a bomb attack on a paramilitary convoy in the Warmagi area of Kurram Agency.

Security officials said that the convoy of Thall Scouts of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) was en route to Central Kurram Agency from Thall tehsil of Hangu district via Tora Warai area. Unidentified militants remotely detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) when the convoy was passing through Warmagai area around 9am.

“Six FC soldiers embraced shahadat and 11 were injured in [the] IED blast,” one security official confirmed. Another official added that four soldiers died on the spot, while another two died at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Peshawar where the casualties were flown in a military helicopter.

The second official said that the FC vehicle was destroyed in the blast. Security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation, though no arrests were made.

The Ansarul Mujahideen militant group, which has been active in the tribal areas for around three years, later claimed responsibility for the attack.



“We have carried out this attack to avenge drone victims. We are not part of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) so we aren’t bound by their ceasefire,” the group’s spokesperson Abu Baseer told journalists by phone from an undisclosed location.

The TTP has announced a one-month ceasefire to pursue peace talks with the government. Reciprocating the move, the government has also called off surgical air strikes against the suspected hideouts of the Taliban which were launched following the slaying of 23 paramilitary troops by the TTP’s Mohmand chapter.

On Monday, gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the Islamabad district courts complex, killing 11 people, including an additional district and sessions judge and lawyers. The TTP distanced itself from the attack – but a little-known militant outfit Ahrarul Hind claimed responsibility for the attack. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2014.