Four soldiers killed in NWA IED attack

MIRANSHAH: Four members of the Pakistan Army’s Quick Response Force (QRF) were killed and two others were seriously injured when their vehicle ran over an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Dattakhel area of the troubled North Waziristan Agency on Saturday, official sources said.
“They were on their way after rescuing an injured soldier when their vehicle ran over an IED in Dattakhel. Four soldiers were killed and two others were injured in the explosion,” a security official said on condition of anonymity.
He said the injured soldiers had been shifted to a military-run hospital in Bannu, where they are stated to be in critical condition.
Those killed were identified as Havaldar Gul Khan, Naik Asif, Naik Ghaffar and Sepoy Asif Khan.
Similarly, Sepoy Niamat and Sepoy Amir were seriously injured in the IED blast.
The bodies of slain security personnel were transported to their ancestral areas for burial after their funeral prayers were offered at the Bannu Cantonment.
Before their killing, the sources said, militants had attacked a military outpost and killed one soldier and injured another in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan near the Afghan border.
Pakistani military authorities later claimed to have chased the militants and killed five of them in the same area.
The military had launched a massive offensive in North Waziristan on June 15, 2014 against the militants and recently claimed to have cleared most parts of the tribal region of the militants. However, they are still facing serious security challenges in Dattakhel, considered a stronghold of local and foreign militants.
It is a mountainous region, one of the reasons the military couldn’t launch a ground offensive there. The military is using air strikes and long-range artillery guns to target the sanctuaries of militants.