Security forces killed at least 32 terrorists in a ground operation in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency on Friday – the day when army chief General Raheel Sharif flew to the restive region to meet the troops on the frontline. Elsewhere in the country, eight suspected Taliban militants were killed in Ziarat district of Balochistan and seven in Karachi.
A group of terrorists was moving towards the Pak-Afghan border from Tirah Valley when security forces ambushed them in the Wurmagai and Spurkot areas, according to the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). “Thirty-two terrorists were killed in [the ensuing] exchange of fire,” it said in a statement.
Three security personnel were also wounded in the gunbattle. The fleeing terrorists left behind bodies of their accomplices. The operation took place on a day when army chief General Raheel Sharif flew to Khyber Agency to visit front-line troops participating in the ongoing ground action against terrorists.
Separately, around 22 bodies of militants were shifted to a Levies station in the Shakhas area by security forces for identification on Friday. Of them, 18 militants were killed in a clash with security forces in the Tangir Sar area of Bara, in Khyber Agency, according to a press release issued by the local political administration.
On Thursday night, at least 12 militants were killed in a clash with security forces in the Godar area of Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency. A security official said that heavily armed militants attacked a security check-post in the Godar area on Thursday night, triggering an hour-long shootout that left 12 attackers dead.
Ziarat operation
Eight members of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were killed during an operation by the security forces in the Sanjavi area of Ziarat district. A huge cache of heavy arms, ammunition was recovered during the operation.
Acting on a tip-off about the presence of TTP militants in the Sanjavi area, the security forces conducted a search operation in the Killi Pohi area where a man, Najamuddin, was killed in ensuing firefight with the security forces, according to district administration officials. Najamuddin was later identified as deputy chief of the TTP in Balochistan. In a subsequent search operation in an area adjacent to Killi Pohi, seven more suspected militants were killed.
Meanwhile, Abid Mucchar, the TTP operational commander in Karachi, was gunned down along with three of his companions in an encounter in Mauripur’s Musharraf Colony on Friday. Moreover, late Friday night, three more militants were killed in an exchange of fire with the paramilitary rangers in the Ghagar Phatak area.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2014.
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Excellent...destroy all the evil!