Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
April 23, 2022
Pakistan’s army says that militants in Afghanistan fired heavy weapons and waged a firefight across the border overnight, killing three personnel at an army outpost in mountainous northwest Pakistan.
The April 23 statement said Pakistani troops had returned fire after the initial attack on the outpost, in the North Waziristan district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
It said an unspecified number of militants had been killed.
There was no way to immediately verify the report.
But that region of the Afghan-Pakistan border sees considerable activity by the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has reportedly stepped up its attacks on Pakistani security targets.
And a brutal affiliate of the Islamic State militant group known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-K) has claimed responsibility for a number of recent attacks in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
Afghanistan has seen an increase in violence that is likely to increase domestic and international pressure on the Taliban-led government in Kabul that came to power in August 2021 as U.S.-led international forces withdrew and the Afghan government dissolved.
An explosion at a mosque and religious school in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz Province during Friday Prayers on April 22 killed at least 33 people, Taliban officials said.
Earlier this month, Pakistan retaliated to an ambush that killed seven of its troops by bombing targets inside Afghanistan.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) confirmed that 20 children were killed in strikes in the Khost and Kunar provinces, and Afghan locals said the death toll was in the dozens.
Based on reporting by AP and dpa