At least three members of Pakistan's army and eight suspected militants were killed in a shootout in the northwest of the country during an operation by security forces against insurgent groups operating in the region.
The operation took place in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and ended with the deaths of eight members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), one of the main guerrilla organizations allied with the Taliban, the Pakistan Media Office said. Army.
"During the operation, our own troops effectively attacked the Khwarij [expression used by the Pakistan army to refer to the TTP] position. As a result, eight Khwarij were killed and seven injured," the office said.
The statement released on Wednesday night added that three Pakistani soldiers were killed in the gunfight.
On Saturday, an attack by a suicide bomber near a Pakistani police and army checkpoint killed eight people, including six members of the security forces, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The attacker was driving a small motor vehicle when he approached the checkpoint, near the town of Mir Ali in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, a local authorities source said.
An unknown group claimed responsibility for the attack in the mountainous region, which borders Afghanistan, in a statement sent to the France-Presse news agency.
Pakistan has seen an increase in attacks by the Pakistani Taliban, trained to fight in Afghanistan and who claim to share the same ideology as the Taliban, who returned to power in Kabul in 2021, following the withdrawal of NATO troops.
Last Thursday, ten Pakistani police officers were killed at a roadblock, in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
At the end of September, a column of cars carrying diplomats, including the Portuguese ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Frederico Silva, was the target of an explosion in the Swat valley, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
At the time, the TTP said it had no connection with the attack.
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