DERA ISLAMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani security forces have raided a militant hideout, killing 11 people during a nighttime operation at a former hideout. stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the restive northwest, authorities said Tuesday.
The intelligence-led attack was in retaliation for Sunday’s roadside bomb attack that killed seven soldiers in the same Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan, the army said in a statement.
It added that the operation was still ongoing “to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area” and that security forces were “determined to eradicate the menace of terrorism” in Pakistan.
No one has claimed Sunday’s attack, but blame is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, an ally of the Afghan Taliban but a separate group. Since the war, the country has stepped up its attacks in the region Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Pakistani officials often accuse Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers of harboring TTP fighters, an accusation Kabul repeatedly denies. The Pakistani Taliban say they will not use Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan.
