KHAR / TIMERGARA: At least 11 militants and two volunteers of a tribal Lashkar were killed and five civilians injured when Afghan-based Pakistani militants attacked border villages in Bajaur Agency and Lower Dir district on Thursday night and Friday.

The Tehrik Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the Bajaur attack.

Officials told Dawn that over 100 militants from across the border entered Batwar village in Tehsil Salarzai, 50km northwest of Khar, on Friday and started firing on the posts set up by Salarzai Qaumi Lashkar.

The sources said that militants held civilians hostage and took positions atop their houses. “Dozens of Lashkar volunteers rushed to the area soon after the attack and exchanged heavy fire with the assailants,” said Jandol Khan, a resident of the area.

The firing continued till the evening in which six militants and two Lashkar men were killed and five civilians injured.

Earlier on Thursday night, five intruders were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in Miskini Darra area of Lower Dir, officials said.

They said the militants belonging to the Hafiz Kochwan group of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan sneaked into the villages of Ankal Sar and Miskini Darra from Afghanistan and fired rockets on check-posts.

Security forces retaliated with heavy gunfire and killed five militants, the sources said. The gunbattle continued for more than three hours during which attackers took away the bodies of their comrades, they said.

“Militants will never be allowed to come back and settle in Pakistani villages,” a security official said while talking to journalists in Timergara on Friday.

The TTP claimed responsibility for the Bajaur attack. The banned organisation’s spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told reporters from an unidentified place that the Taliban would continue to launch attacks in the area till people withdrew their support for the government.