KOHAT: Six security officials were martyred after more than a dozen militants stormed an oil and gas exploration site, police and the energy firm said on Tuesday.

The attack took place at facilities run by MOL Pak­istan Oil and Gas Com­pany, a unit of Hungary’s MOL, in the Manji Khel area of Hangu district near the Afghan border.

Police said the militants targeted two wells, known as M-8 and M-10, with hea­vy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades.

The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pak­is­tan (TTP) claimed res­ponsibility for the attack.

The martyred officials included four members of the Frontier Constabulary, identified as Hamzali, Waleed, Shariatullah and Zafar Alam. Two of the victims were private guards, identified as Sabz Ali and Aseel Khan.

The Counterterrorism Department told Dawn on Tuesday that about 15 to 20 militants equipped with modern weapons sca­led the mountains adjacent to the North Waziris­tan district and opened fire at the guards at the oil and gas installations late on Monday night.

The exchange of fire continued for two hours, and the attackers fled after the gunfight.

The Thal scouts and pol­ice reached the spot and launched a combing operation, which continued until Tuesday morning.

Police official Irfan Khan told Reuters that the security guards at M-8 repulsed the attack, but the casualties occurred at M-10. He said the attackers also damaged a solar power plant.

The militants then fled to adjoining North Waziristan, from where they had originally come, he said.

Similarly, district police chief Asif Bahadur told AFP that about 50 fighters attacked the site. “They were armed with light and heavy weapons and fired mortar shells, killing six security personnel at the main entrance” to the remote site near the Afghan border, he said.

MOL said in a statement that none of its employees was present at the scene of the attack. It added that members of the security forces martyred in the attack included soldiers and third-party contractors.

It said production from the wells had been temporarily shut down by remote access and the wells are now secured, pending the completion of an on-site regulatory investigation.

The attack occurred at a distance from the plant area, and production at the other wells continued uninterrupted, it said, adding that the incident did not affect MOL’s production.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2023