The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a brazen overnight raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan on Saturday, which intelligence officials said resulted in the deaths of 16 soldiers and the critical wounding of five others.
The assault began after midnight and lasted about two hours, during which around 30 militants attacked the mountainous outpost from three sides, a senior intelligence official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Sixteen soldiers were martyred and five were critically injured in the assault," he said. "The militants set fire to wireless communication equipment, documents, and other items at the checkpoint."
A second intelligence official also anonymously confirmed the death toll and the number of wounded in the attack, which took place in the Makeen area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Afghan border.
The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying it was carried out "in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders."
The group also claimed to have seized a cache of military equipment, including machine guns and a night vision device.
Pakistan's military has not yet issued an official statement on the incident.
Since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has faced a resurgence of militant violence along its western border.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban in Kabul of failing to eliminate militants staging cross-border attacks on Pakistan from Afghan soil.
The Pakistani Taliban share an ideological affinity with the Afghan Taliban, both groups having emerged from similar fundamentalist roots.
While Kabul’s rulers have pledged to expel foreign militant groups from Afghan territory, a July UN Security Council report estimated that up to 6,500 TTP fighters are based in Afghanistan, and noted that "the Taliban do not view the TTP as a terrorist group."
The report further stated that the Afghan Taliban have shown "ad hoc support and tolerance" for TTP operations, including supplying weapons and allowing them to train.
The increase in such attacks has strained relations between Islamabad and Kabul. Security concerns were cited as one of the reasons behind Pakistan's campaign last year to expel hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghan migrants.
With AFP
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