Islamabad, April 6, (dpa/GNA) – At least eight Islamist militants were killed in a shootout with Pakistani army commandos near the Afghan border, officials said on Thursday, a week after four police officers died in a bombing claimed by the Taliban in the same region.
An intense gunfight broke out between the army and militants when troops raided the Taliban hideout in the district of South Waziristan overnight, a statement by the military said on Thursday.
At least one soldier was killed in the shootout, the statement added.
The attack occurred a week after Taliban militants targeted a police patrol vehicle with a roadside bomb in the same region, killing four officers.
The Pakistani military has stepped up operations after a Taliban suicide bomber killed at least 84 people, mostly police officers, at a mosque inside the police headquarters in the city of Peshawar in January.
The Pakistani Taliban have killed around 80,000 people in decades of violence.
They were pushed back from their stronghold regions on the Afghan border in a series of offensives since 2014, but have been seeking to regather after the fall of Kabul to the Afghan Taliban.
GNA