Afghan Border Attack Kills 4 Soldiers in Pakistan, 5 Die in Suicide Bombing
Militants killed four soldiers and wounded three others on Wednesday in a cross-border attack on Pakistani checkpoints situated along the troubled frontier with Afghanistan, officials said.
The posts came under fire from the Afghan side early on Wednesday morning in the Manozangal and Mukha Tops areas of the Bajaur tribal region, one of seven such districts bordering Afghanistan.
Maulana Fazlullah, current head of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which rose up against the Pakistani state in 2007, is believed to be possibly hiding in Kunar, the Afghan district which borders Bajaur.
The incident came four days after up to 200 militants from across the border attacked a group of Pakistani posts in the same region, triggering fierce fighting that killed one soldier and 11 rebels.
"Terrorists from across the border fired on Pakistani border posts at Manozangal and Mukha Tops," a senior security official told Agence France Presse.
"Four soldiers embraced shahadat (martyrdom) and four others including an officer were injured," he added.
Pakistan's foreign ministry later said in a statement: "Islamabad condemns these unprovoked attacks."
It added that the matter had been raised with the Afghan government in Kabul and with their embassy in Islamabad.
"It has been emphasized that Afghanistan must take concrete steps to stop the use of its territory against Pakistan."
Islamabad had also lodged a protest over the May 31 attack with Afghanistan's deputy ambassador in Islamabad while the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul raised the matter with the Afghan foreign ministry.
Both countries frequently accuse each other of backing cross-border attacks by militants.
More than 6,800 people have been killed in bomb and gun attacks around Pakistan since the TTP began its insurgency, according to an AFP tally.
Also Wednesday, a suicide bomb attack on an army vehicle killed five people including two senior army officers near Pakistan's capital Islamabad , officials said.
The attack happened on a main road just outside the town of Fateh Jang 40 kilometers (24 miles) west of Islamabad, local police official Ghulam Majeed told AFP.
Details of how the bomber reached the vehicle are not yet clear.
"Two officers, namely Lieutenant Colonels Zahir Shah and Arshad, and three civilians embraced shahadat (martyrdom) when a security forces vehicle was targeted by a suicide bomber," a security official told AFP.
The bomber was also killed.
More than 4,000 Pakistani police, paramilitaries or troops have lost their lives to an Islamist insurgency since 2002, but the death of high-ranking officers is rare.
Source: Agence France Presse
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