At least 10 militants were killed on Friday in an operation by security forces in Bajaur Agency, close to the Afghan border.
Officials in Khar, headquarters of Bajaur, said the security forces backed by helicopter gunships targeted Afghan militants in Mamoond area, close to the Pak-Afghan border.
The forces killed 10 militants and cleared the area of militants, who had crossed in to the Pakistani territory from Afghanistan. The officials said the security in the area had been beefed up and ground forces were conducting a search operation in the border area to flush out more militants. Five people, including three women, were killed when suspected Afghan militants entered the area and attacked three villages in Bajaur.
Officials and tribesmen in Khar had said on Thursday that a large number of militants had crossed into the agency’s Mamoond area, carrying modern weapons and dressed in Afghan armed forces uniform.
The militants attacked residents of Manaro Zangal village, killing five people and injuring eight others. Later, security forces and the local peace lashkar retaliated and the clash continued for hours in the mountains of the border region.
But Afghan officials had denied any cross-border attack and accused Pakistani troops of killing six people in a rocket strike on Wednesday.
Muhammad Ilyas Khan, a government official in Mamoond, and security officials in the northwest had confirmed the attack. The militants reportedly abducted more than 20 volunteers of the tribal lashkar and there has been no news of their whereabouts so far. Meanwhile, the traditional jirga of tribesmen held in Mamoond on Friday reaffirmed its stance against terrorism and vowed to continue efforts for peace in the area.
