Attack near the Afghan border kills two troops and wounds twenty-two more

ISLAMABAD The military’s media wing reported on Friday that a suicide bomber crashed his truck full of explosives into a military convoy in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border, killing two troops and injuring at least 22 others.

Following a militant attack on a military post in North Waziristan, a volatile region on the Afghan border, that killed seven Pakistani soldiers, including a captain and colonel, on March 18, Pakistan launched airstrikes against suspected terror hideouts in the Afghan provinces of Khost and Paktika. This attack occurred shortly after that.

According to the Pakistan army’s public relations division, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), a suicide bombing occurred in the Dera Ismail Khan area on Thursday. The suicide bomber targeted “the convoy on its way to Tank (district) from Dera Ismail Khan,” according to the police report.
For a long time, Kabul has denied that terrorists plan cross-border assaults from its territory. Taliban representatives have denied Pakistan’s assertion that it is targeting terrorists inside Afghan borders and accused Islamabad of using airstrikes to murder women and children. In response to Pakistani attacks, Taliban fighters used heavy artillery to strike their soldiers’ positions along the border.
Relations between Pakistan and its longtime ally, the Afghan Taliban, have been tight for a number of months. After the Taliban overthrew the Afghan government that the US had supported in 2021, Pakistan had less influence over them. Since then, there have been long-standing disagreements between the two nations, including boundary disputes. The 2,600-kilometre Durand Line was not recognised by the Taliban, like previous Afghan governments, as a permanent boundary with Pakistan. Their foot troops have also engaged in skirmishes with Pakistani forces building border walls on many occasions.
The Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who had fought alongside their Afghan counterparts against US-led Western and earlier Afghan troops, have increased their assaults in Pakistan as a result of the Taliban’s restoration to power in Kabul.
Pakistan has attempted a variety of strategies to stop the assaults, including talks with the TTP, internal counterterrorism operations, cross-border operations based on information, building a border barrier, and applying pressure by evicting thousands of Afghan refugees. But thus far, nothing has been effective.