On Wednesday Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Taliban militants claimed to have established control over two security checkpoints near the border with Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the National.
Early in the morning the militants started an attack in the Janjareet Koh, Ustaoi and Usool areas of the Bamboret Valley, police officers stationed there reported. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed the militants seized two checkpoints in Janjareet Koh. TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said:
“We have captured the check posts, took possession of weapons and other items, and also killed six soldiers.”
The Pakistani security forces have not commented on the situation.
Zu Maira, a policewoman posted in Bamboret, told:
“The attack occurred in the early morning darkness while Pakistani border forces and police were stationed there…However, army reinforcements have reached the border area, and an ongoing exchange of gunfire is reported.”
Roads in the valley were reported to have been blocked.
The Bamboret Valley, a popular tourist destination located 30km from Chitral, the main town in the district of the same name, had enjoyed relative peace compared to other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Moazzam Jah Ansari, former chief of the provincial police, said last year that the attacks were becoming more violent because the militants had received modern weaponry left behind by US forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. Militant attacks in the province have become more frequent since the TTP ended its truce with the government in November last year.
