Mohmand Agency attack: Roadside blast kills six servicemen

TTP’s local chapter claims responsibility; two security officials die in clash with militants in Landikotal.

SHABQADAR:

Six servicemen were killed and three others injured Saturday morning in a bomb attack on a security convoy  in the Pandiyali tehsil of Mohmand Agency.

The security personnel were travelling to Tamazai area where militants had blown up a state-run school the previous night, political administration and security officials said. “When their vehicle reached the Shati Kandao area, suspected militants remotely triggered an improvised explosive device (IED) planted on a roadside,” one official told The Express Tribune.

The local chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack that took place around 7:30 am.

The attackers detonated an improvised explosive device, killing four personnel on the spot and injuring five others. The injured were immediately rushed to Peshawar for treatment where two of them succumbed to their injuries at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH).



Officials said that the security forces were en route to Alam Sher village for a search operation after Govt Middle School Malik Sher was bombed Friday night. After the deadly blast, a fresh contingent reached the spot to clear the area with the help of sniffer dogs.

The local political administration claims to have detained 31 suspects, while the security forces are still combing the area. Later in the day, an indefinite curfew was imposed in the entire Safi and Khawaizai tehsils as well as in the Kamali area of Halemzai tehsil. The main Mohmand-Bajaur Road has been closed for all kinds of traffic.

Omar Khurasani, the spokesman for TTP’s Mohmand chapter, claimed credit for the deadly attack in a phone call to reporters from an undisclosed location.

In the neighbouring Bajaur Agency, a petty officer of the Levies force was critically wounded in an IED attack on a check-post on Saturday. The IED was planted by suspected militants near the check-post just outside Kamar Sar Bazaar in Mamond tehsil, an official of the local political administration said. The bomb went off at 9:30am, critically wounding the Levies official, identified as Hawaldar Abdul Wali Khan.

The injured was ferried to the agency headquarters hospital in Khar, where medics referred him to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. A search operation was launched in the area.

Separately, a high intensity bomb was defused in the Bad-e-Samoor area of Khar.



According to political administration official Umer Saeed Khan, a pedestrian informed the Levies force about a suspicious canister on the road connecting Inayat Kallay and Khar. Levies personnel cordoned off the area while Bomb Disposal Squad experts confirmed it was an IED which was subsequently defused.

Eight militants killed in Khyber Agency

In Khyber Agency, eight militants, including a senior commander were killed in a firefight with security forces on Saturday night, according to the ISPR. Two security officials were killed and three others injured in the same clash.

A contingent of security forces was travelling to Landikotal when militants ambushed them, killing two personnel and injuring three others, the ISPR said in a statement. In a retaliatory action, eight militants were killed, it added.

A senior khasadar official said that the gunfight took place in the Khoga Khel area of Landikotal adding that the injured were taken to the agency headquarters hospital Landikotal where medics referred them to the CMH Peshawar. A search operation was launched in the area. (With additional reporting by our correspondents in Mohmand, Bajaur and Khyber agencies)


Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2014.