Nine soldiers killed in NWA

Security forces, engaged by terrorists in North Waziristan, suffered nine casualties in clashes with militants on Sunday. According to an ISPR statement, the security forces were continuously targeted by the terrorists at Amin checkpost in Miranshah. On Sunday, during an attack on a military convoy, intense exchange of firing took place in which nine troops were killed. Earlier, the security forces used helicopters and artillery to bomb militant hideouts in North Waziristan shortly after they fired rockets on a convoy of security forces, tribesmen in the region said. An army captain and two other security personnel were injured in exchange of fire, they said. The injured were airlifted to a military hospital in Bannu. Tribesmen said a rocket landed on a mosque Sunday evening, injuring up to 15 people. The shell hit the mosque at Zafar town in the outskirts of Miranshah as the security forces and suspected militants exchanged firing for several hours. Announcements were made through loudspeakers from mosques to rush to the mosque to shift the injured to the main hospital, residents said. An emergency was also declared in the agency’s main hospital to treat the injured, they said. Clashes between the army and the militants began as the security forces started demolishing a garden, which officials said, was being used by the militants for attacks on the security forces. The garden is located in the outskirts of Miranshah. A shell also hit a vehicle, carrying suspected militants, killing three of them, a correspondent said on phone from the region. Shells also landed on houses and vehicles, causing huge flames, residents said. A shell also hit the residence of a local officer of education department in civil colony in the heart of the town. There was no report of civilian casualty as security forces had imposed weekly curfew in North Waziristan. The authorities clamp curfew on every Sunday for troops’ movement in the region. Residents said people also fled to safer places as there had been no let up in exchange of firing the whole day. In other areas fighting forced the people in remain indoors.