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Pakistan kills 7 militants who attacked North Waziristan border checkpoint

Afghan army soldiers observe from a distance as U.S. military leaders and advisers from Resolute Support HQ and Train, Advise, Assist Command - East walk with leaders from the Afghan Uniform Police, Afghan National Army and Afghan Border Police at the Khyber Border Coordination Center near Torkham Gate at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, January 4, 2015. Image: Capt. Jarrod Morris/US Army

Pakistani security forces killed seven militants in a firefight after insurgents crossed the Afghan border into Pakistan’s restive tribal region, the military said Tuesday.

Officials said the clashes erupted late Monday, October 1 when militants attacked a Pakistani border post in North Waziristan tribal district.

“During [the] exchange of fire seven terrorists [were] killed while three [were] injured,” the military said in a statement.

The militants may have been part of the group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur that is associated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and aligned with the Haqqani network, Dawn reported a military source as saying.

Violence in Pakistan has declined dramatically in recent years following a series of military operations along the northwestern border with Afghanistan, but militant groups are still able to carry out deadly attacks.

In April, Afghanistan deployed troops after a cross-border gunfight with Pakistani security forces along the Durand Line left at least three people dead.

In 2014, Pakistan’s army launched Zarb-i-Azb, a massive operation to wipe out militant bases in North Waziristan and end the near decade-long insurgency that has cost thousands of lives.

The operation intensified after the Taliban massacred more than 150 people, the majority of them children, at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014.

In 2016, the Pakistani army claimed to have cleared the last militant stronghold in the country’s northwest after a three-month long operation.

But analysts have long warned that Pakistan is not tackling the root causes of extremism, and that militants retain the ability to carry out spectacular attacks.

A suicide blast in the southwestern province of Balochistan on July 13 killed at least 149 people during a campaign rally – one of Pakistan’s worst-ever terror attacks – underscoring continuing security challenges in the country following years of dramatic improvements.


With reporting from AFP

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