Clashes with militants in northwest Pakistan kill 14 security force members 

FILE - Pakistan Army troops observe the area from hilltop post on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Aug. 3, 2021. Local security officials in Khyber said a gunfight between TTP assailants and security forces erupted Friday, resulting in the deaths of at least two personnel.

Pakistani authorities said Friday that clashes with militants killed at least 14 security force officers and injured several others in a northwestern province bordering Afghanistan. The violence took place in the militancy-affected Khyber, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, frequently ambushes military and police personnel and stages attacks against their outposts. Local security officials in Khyber said a gunfight between TTP assailants and security forces erupted Friday, resulting in the deaths of at least two personnel and injuries to three others. They also reported the killing of at least two militants. Separately, militants ambushed a police vehicle in Bannu, killing a senior police officer and his guard. The Bannu attack came just hours after authorities in nearby Dera Ismail Khan reported that at least 10 security force members were killed when heavily armed militants stormed their outpost late on Thursday, according to multiple security officials. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attacks in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, paying tribute to the “martyred” security personnel, his office said in Islamabad. It did not specify the number of fatalities from these attacks, nor did it mention the deadly clash in Khyber. TTP, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed it carried out the raid in Dera Ismail Khan in retaliation for the recent killing of one of its senior commanders, identified as Ustad Qureshi, by Pakistani security forces. The Pakistani military reported on Thursday that Qureshi was one of nine TTP members, including two suicide bombers, killed this week in an intelligence-driven operation in the Bajaur district next to the Afghan border. Pakistani officials allege that TTP operates out of sanctuaries in Afghanistan with the support of the neighboring country’s Islamist Taliban leaders. Islamabad has reported a dramatic surge in TTP-led insurgent attacks in Pakistan since the Taliban regained power in Kabul three years ago. The violence has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Pakistanis, half of them security forces, across the country in the first 10 months of this year alone. The Afghan Taliban deny allegations that the TTP or any other transnational militant groups are present on their territory, a claim disputed by recent United Nations security assessments and regional countries. “We urge for more visible and verifiable measures in Afghanistan to ensure that the territory of Afghanistan is not used by terrorists,” stated a joint declaration after the BRICS summit hosted by Russia this week.