KHAR/MIRAMSHAH: Three security personnel, among them an officer, lost their lives when rockets fired from Afghanistan hit their vehicle in Bajaur Agency, while 13 militants were killed in Boya area of North Waziristan during the ongoing military operation on Saturday.

Pakistani militants hiding across the border in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province fired at a security che­ckpoint atop Ghakhi mountain, about 32km northwest of Bajaur, at around 1.30am, killing two security personnel and a captain. Two personnel were injured.

The militants used rockets and other automatic weapons in the attack.

A statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the vehicle carrying security personnel had come under attack close to the border with Afghanistan.

Rockets fired from Afghanistan hit vehicle in Bajaur

Soon after the attack, local people, members of village defence committees and security personnel rushed to the place and took the bodies and the injured to a hospital in agency headquarters Khar. They were later airlifted to Peshawar.

Political administration officials and residents

said that about 50 militants later attacked border posts in the same Ghakhi area when troops were having sehri. No casualties were reported.

Officials said the attackers escaped to Kunar.

The attack in Bajaur from across the border was the first incident since the military launched the operation Zarb-i-Azb in North Waziristan on June 15.

The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. “Our fighters carried out the attack in retaliation for the military action in North Waziristan,” TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told journalists on phone from an unspecified place. He said attacks on security forces would continue in Bajaur and other areas of tribal agencies.

Islamabad has asked Kabul to flush out Pakistani militants who carry out attacks in Pakistan from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

ZARB-I-AZB: The ISPR said security forces continued consolidation of Miramshah and Miramshah-Dattakhel road.

It said that six prepared motorcycle-borne IEDs, two vehicle-borne IEDs, two 12.7mm and one 14.5mm guns, three vehicles, 11 suicide jackets and a large number of arms and ammunition were seized over the past 24 hours in Khar Warsak, near Degan.

The ISPR said militants had fired rockets on a security checkpost in Mirali from inside Mirali town. Thirteen militants were killed and seven hideouts destroyed in pre-dawn air strikes.

Most of the terrorists killed were foreigners, it said.

Three militants, one of them an Uzbek, were captured from Boya area. Two explosives-laden vehicles were destroyed in air strike in Degan. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up they chased and encircled near Boya.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2014