At least eight personnel of security forces were killed and six others injured when dozens of militants attacked a security checkpost in Badar area of South Waziristan late on Tuesday night. Officials said the security forces shot dead 10 militants in retaliatory action in Ghatt Sar area near the shrine of Sarang Baba in Sarwaiki sub-division.
According to the officials, 12 militants were injured, while one soldier was missing.
An official said dozens of militants attacked the checkpost late at night. The militants equipped with modern weapons hurled hand grenades at the checkpost followed by indiscriminate fire on the soldiers. No further details were available.
Exact details of what happened during Wednesday’s attack were unclear. A spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan said the group’s fighters killed 12 soldiers during an assault on a post in the Serwakai district.
The spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said another five soldiers had been kidnapped and were being held hostage. A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said eight soldiers had been killed and six wounded during a broader “search-and-clearance” operation that targeted multiple Taliban hideouts in the area and uncovered a major weapons cache. At least 18 militants were killed in the fighting, he said. The conflicting accounts were typical of South and North Waziristan, where few reporters can safely operate and where both sides to the conflict manipulate the flow of information.
Ehsan, the Taliban spokesman, said the purpose of the attack Wednesday was to “demonstrate that South Waziristan is not under army control.” Meanwhile, in the nearby Bajaur tribal agency, authorities said at least three soldiers and six militants were killed in fighting on Wednesday.
