Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it had summoned its senior Afghan diplomat to lodge a strong protest over a militant attack that killed eight soldiers in the country’s northwest near the Afghan border.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Wednesday it had summoned its senior Afghan diplomat to lodge a strong protest over a militant attack that killed eight soldiers in its northwestern region near the Afghan border.
A vehicle packed with explosives crashed into the outer wall of a military housing complex in the restive city of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday, prompting security forces to open fire, killing 10 militants.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban led by militant commander Gul Bahadur. The TTP is a separate group but is also an ally of the Afghan Taliban, which has stepped up attacks in Pakistan since the latter seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that it called on Kabul to thoroughly investigate the blast and take immediate action against those responsible.
There was no immediate reaction from Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
Pakistan has seen a surge in militant attacks in recent years, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In January 2023, a disguised suicide bomber attacked a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 101 people, most of them police officers.
