MONITORING (SW) – Four Pakistan Army soldiers were killed while five others were critically injured after militants launched a \u201cdastardly attack\u201d on the Zhob garrison in northern Balochistan during the early hours of Wednesday, the military\u2019s media affairs wing said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that terrorists\u2019 initial attempt \u201cto sneak into the facility was checked by soldiers on duty\u201d.\u00a0\u201cIn ensuing heavy exchange of fire, the terrorists have been contained into a small area at the boundary,\u201d the ISPR said, adding that three \u201cheavily armed terrorists\u201d had been killed so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cA clearance operation by security forces is under way to apprehend remaining two terrorists as well,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Earlier today, Zhob District Commissioner (DC) Azeem Kakar had told\u00a0Dawn.com<\/em>\u00a0that the cantonment area in Zhob was under attack.<\/p>\n He further said that a woman civilian was killed after being caught in the crossfire while five other civilians were left injured. The official added that the severely injured were being referred to Quetta.<\/p>\n DC Kakar said that a passenger bus coming from Dera Ismail Khan was also caught in the firing. He added that \u201cnothing can be said about the number of attackers\u201d, and asserted that all departments were on alert and an operation was under way.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo condemned the attack on the Zhob garrison and paid tribute to the Pakistan Army for thwarting it by taking swift action.<\/p>\n In a statement, he said that the nation was proud of the sacrifices made by the martyrs and also offered his condolences to their families. \u201cPakistan Army is the guarantor of peace and security in the region,\u201d the chief minister said.<\/p>\n Pakistan has seen an uptick in terror activities, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, after the outlawed TTP\u00a0ended its ceasefire with the government in November last year, reported Dawn news.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, four security personnel were\u00a0martyred while a terrorist was killed after police and Levies checkposts in the Dhana Sar area of Balochistan\u2019s Sherani subdistrict came under attack. A report\u00a0released this month by think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies said the first half of the current year witnessed a steady and alarming rise in terror and suicide attacks, claiming the lives of 389 people across the country.<\/p>\n In June, a police official was\u00a0martyred\u00a0and two more were injured in a suicide attack on a police van in Balochistan\u2019s Turbat.<\/p>\n In an earlier incident the same month, two soldiers were\u00a0martyred\u00a0after a security forces\u2019 checkpost in the Kech district along the Pakistan-Iran border came under attack.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0press conference\u00a0in June, Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said that the security forces conducted 13,619 intelligence operations this year in which 1,172 terrorists were killed or arrested.<\/p>\n ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MONITORING (SW) – Four Pakistan Army soldiers were killed while five others were critically injured after militants launched a \u201cdastardly attack\u201d on the Zhob garrison in northern Balochistan during the early hours of Wednesday, the military\u2019s media affairs wing said. In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that terrorists\u2019 initial attempt \u201cto sneak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,984,978,17,194,7,178],"tags":[177,848,1177],"class_list":["post-14935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-security","category-security_","category-world","category-headline","category-pakistan","tag-pakistan","tag-ttp","tag-zhob"],"views":85,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14937,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14935\/revisions\/14937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}