GHALANAI: At least five suspected militants were killed when security forces repulsed an attack on a checkpost in Mohmand Agency on Friday night.

Official sources said a group of eight to 10 militants attacked the checkpost in Karapa area of Pandiali Tehsil around midnight. Security personnel retaliated and managed to overwhelm the attackers, killing five of them. Arms and ammunition were recovered from the possession of dead militants.

The sources said a search operation was continuing in the area to track down the attackers.

A security official told Dawn that the bodies were handed over to the administration and buried in the graveyard of agency headquarters in Ghalanai after investigation.

Nine Khasadars were killed in separate attacks on checkposts in the agency on Thursday night.

School blown up

Militants said on Saturday that they had blown up a girls’ primary school in Tiarza village of South Waziristan, adds AFP.

There were no casualties, but the bomb destroyed three out of five classrooms of the school, a security official said.

Azam Tariq, a spokesman for a group of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the school had been targeted because it was run by the military.

He said that militants had captured 18 people, including school security guards and labourers, before planting the explosive, but later released them.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2016