UPDATES WITH STATEMENT FROM PAKISTAN ARMY; ADDS NUMBER OF TERRORISTS KILLED; REVISES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE
By Islamuddin Sajid and Saadet Gokce
ISLAMABAD / ISTANBUL (AA) - At least 13 Pakistani soldiers were killed Saturday in a suicide bombing in the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, while 14 terrorists were killed by the military in subsequent operations, the Pakistani army said.
According to a Pakistani army statement, three civilians, including two children and a woman, were “severely injured” in the attack.
The military operations in the area will continue, it added.
Earlier, local media reported that the attack was carried out on an army convoy in Khadi Market, Mir Ali, North Waziristan.
Security officials said the coordinated attack occurred in Mir Ali when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near a bomb disposal unit vehicle from the 22 Frontier Force Regiment.
The attack is one of the deadliest single-day attacks on security forces in recent months in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “strongly condemned” the attack and praised the army for the operation that killed the 14 terrorists, according to a Prime Minister’s Office statement.
A local militant group led by Hafiz Gulbahadar of North Waziristan has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Islamabad accuses Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, who are allegedly based in Afghanistan, of carrying out terrorist attacks in Pakistan, while Kabul denies that such attacks are launched from its soil.