By Saud Mehsud
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – Islamist militants killed a Pakistani army officer on Thursday during a gun battle in a tribal district close to the Afghan border, the army said, close to where three soldiers died in a suicide attack the previous day.
Major Abdullah Shah, 33, was leading an operation in the Khyber region when he was shot dead in an exchange of fire, the army said, adding that “three terrorists and their facilitators” were taken prisoner.
On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle close to a military check-point in nearby North Waziristan district, killing three soldiers and several civilians, the army said.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a local militant umbrella organisation of Sunni Islamists and sectarian groups, claimed responsibility for killing Shah.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.
The TTP aims to overthrow the government and install its own brand of strict Islamic law in the predominantly Muslim nation of 220 million.
It has stepped up its attacks since it revoked a ceasefire agreement with the government in late 2022, while the military – supported by U.S. drones – have conducted operations against the group over several years in the tribal border regions, driving its fighters into neighbouring Afghanistan.
The government accuses the TTP of having rebased its operations in Afghanistan, something Kabul denies.
(Writing by Asif Shahzad; editing by John Stonestreet)
