Pakistani troops kill 10 militants after suicide bomb attack on military base

All 10 militants who rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a Pakistani military facility have been killed in an 18-hour operation, officials said on Tuesday.

The Pakistani military said eight soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into the outer wall of an army housing complex in Bannu, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, early on Monday

A splinter group of Pakistani Taliban, led by militant commander Gul Bahadur, claimed the attack, which was denounced by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and other officials.

The military said the suicide attack collapsed a portion of the wall and damaged nearby infrastructure, resulting in the deaths of the eight soldiers.

Responding to the attack, security forces killed all 10 attackers, it said.

Pakistan has consistently raised its concerns with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the military adds, “asking them to deny persistent use of Afghan soil by the terrorists and to take effective action against such elements”.

The military said Pakistan’s armed forces “will keep defending the motherland and its people against this menace of terrorism and will take all necessary measures as deemed appropriate against these threats emanating from Afghanistan”.

There was no immediate comment from Kabul.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks in recent years, mostly in the north-west which borders Afghanistan.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, five civilians, including two women health workers and two children, were killed when militants opened fire at a health facility in the north-western district of Dera Ismail Khan, the military said.

A statement said troops stationed nearby responded to the attack, killing three of the attackers.

However, two soldiers were also “martyred” in the ensuing shootout, it added.

The military said those behind the killings of innocent people “will be brought to justice”.

No-one claimed responsibility for the attack on the health facility.

Most previous attacks have been blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. They are a separate group but also an ally of the Afghan Taliban.

TTP has stepped up its attacks on security forces across the country since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.