Pakistan Army on Tuesday said a soldier was martyred in the country’s northwest by fire from across the Afghan border.
The attack late Monday hit a border security post in Bajaur district, a former tribal region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The military statement said the shooting came from the Afghan side of the frontier and provided no further details.
The brief statement said Pakistan ‘has been consistently raising the issue for border management on other side to avoid use of Afghanistan soil against Pakistan’.
In July, Pakistan said militants martyred a soldier in a cross-border attack on a security post in Bajaur district. That same month, a United Nations report said more than 6,000 insurgents were hiding in Afghanistan, most belonging to the Pakistani Taliban. Also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, they are a separate insurgent group from the Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan’s border areas served as a base for the Taliban and other militants until a few years ago, when the army cleared the region of insurgents, but occasional attacks have continued.
On Saturday, two Pakistani soldiers were martyred in a shootout with militants during a search operation in North Waziristan district, around 160 kilometers south of Bajaur district. Earlier this month, the Taliban took responsibility for a powerful roadside bombing in North Waziristan that targeted a military vehicle, killing three soldiers and wounding four.
Pakistan and Afghanistan share an internationally recognized border known as the Durand Line.
