Pakistan, July 25 : A suicide attack in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed 15 people, including 12 army personnel, two policemen and a former government official of the forest department, and killed 12 terrorists.
According to the Pakistani army, security forces killed 12 terrorists in the attack in the Tank district. The attackers rammed a vehicle into a security wall and the explosion caused serious damage to the checkpoint, the statement said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic terror group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has considerable influence in the region.
Pakistan has previously blamed an insurgency originating in Afghanistan for the rise in attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southern border province of Balochistan. The Taliban government in Afghanistan has denied the charge. Amid the tensions, Pakistan has carried out deadly airstrikes along the Afghan border.
Pakistan has claimed to have targeted terrorist hideouts on Afghan soil. Meanwhile, the Taliban regime and the United Nations say dozens of innocent civilians were killed in Pakistani airstrikes in June. The attacks and allegations have further strained relations between the two countries, leading to ongoing tensions along the border.