The Pakistani army announced on Friday that 15 people, including soldiers, police, and government employees, were murdered after an explosives-laden car crashed into a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan on Thursday night. Twelve extremists were killed in retribution for the attack.
“Fifteen brave sons of soil, including twelve military, two policemen, and a government official ex forest department rendered the ultimate sacrifice and embraced Shahadat (martyrdom),” the army said in a statement. The incident took place in the Tank district of northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
According to the statement, “the attackers rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the perimeter wall.” “Due to blast impact, infrastructure at check post was seriously damaged.”
The news agency AFP reports that Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, an Islamist extremist group, has been generating violence in the area, despite no group claiming responsibility for the incident.
In recent months, militancy has significantly increased in northwest Pakistan.
Although the Taliban administration disputes Afghan involvement, Pakistan has previously attributed the rise in assaults in KP and the southern border province of Balochistan to militancy coming from Afghanistan.
Pakistan has carried out lethal bombings that it claims target militants on Afghan soil, and the accusations have caused a deep split and military conflict between the neighboring countries.
The most recent Pakistani attacks on eastern Afghanistan in June claimed the lives of dozens of civilians, according to the Taliban government and the UN.
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