The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a military post in the northwest of the country on Saturday. The rebel group said 35 soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in the early morning attack. It has also claimed to have seized equipment including night vision devices and weapons.
This is the latest attack by the Pakistani Taliban on the army in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
They made the claim in one of their WhatsApp chat groups.
The army has not officially commented on the incident in South Waziristan, but a security official said the militants used both light and heavy weapons. He said they killed 16 soldiers and wounded eight.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The Pakistani Taliban have intensified attacks against the army and police since November 2022, when they ended a unilateral ceasefire with the government after months of talks hosted by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers in Kabul failed.
Also on Saturday, Pakistan’s military said a military court had sentenced 25 people to prison for their involvement in riots last year following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Thousands of protesters stormed army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, stormed an air base in Mianwali in eastern Punjab province and torched a residential building of state-run Radio Pakistan in the northwest. Jail terms ranged from two years to 10, which the army warned, served as a “stark reminder” to people never to take the law into their own hands.
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