PESHAWAR/QUETTA: Two major terrorist attacks from the Afghan side bordering Kurram and Mohmand agencies were repulsed in the last two days, the Frontier Corps said in a statement on Saturday.
Official sources said four attackers were killed in the first attack in which banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) targeted the Bezo post of the Thall Scouts on the Afghan border with Kurram. The four killed included a top commander from the TTP’s Saifullah group.
The second attack took place on the border with Mohmand Agency. The troops fired back and repelled the assault. The number of attackers was not immediately known, but the FC said the terrorists had faced heavy losses.
Meanwhile, Jamaatul Ahrar, a TTP splinter group, claimed responsibility for the attack in Mohmand in an email sent to the media by spokesperson Asad Mansoor. The Pak-Afghan border has been a point of contention between the two countries. Pakistani authorities have often said there were safe havens of terrorist groups in Afghanistan that carried out attacks in Pakistan.
The border management system to control such attacks has also been set up on a priority basis over a stretch of 100 kilometres near Mohmand and Bajaur agencies. Separately, police have arrested a ‘mastermind’ of a number of bombings in border town of Chaman in Balochistan. Police officials said the accused Noor Ahmed, an Afghan national, had crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan, illegally.
“The accused confessed of being involved in explosions near Government Girls College and Railway Road, among others,” a senior police officer said. He said Ahmed escaped to Afghanistan after the attacks; however, was arrested upon return to Chaman a few days back. “I was receiving Rs 100,000 for each attack from Afghanistan,” the officer quoted the accused as saying. Ahmed, the police officer added, he paid Rs 50,000 to the man who conducted the blast. He has been handed over to the authorities concerned in Quetta for further interrogation.
