Clashes with militants in northwestern Pakistan leave 14 members of the security forces dead

Pakistani authorities said on Friday that at least 14 security officers were killed and several others injured in clashes with militants in a northwestern province bordering Afghanistan.

The violence occurred in the militancy-hit Khyber, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) frequently ambushes military and police personnel and carries out attacks on its outposts.

Local security officials in Khyber said a shootout broke out between TTP attackers and security forces on Friday, leaving at least two people dead and three others injured. They also reported the killing of at least two militants.

Separately, militants ambushed a police vehicle in Bannu, killing a senior police officer and his security guard.

The Bannu attack came just hours after authorities in nearby Dera Ismail Khan reported that at least 10 security force members were killed when heavily armed militants stormed their outpost late Thursday, according to several security officials.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attacks in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan and paid tribute to “martyred” security personnel, his office in Islamabad said. The death toll in those attacks was not given, nor was there any mention of the fatal clash in Khyber.

TTP, commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban, claimed it carried out the raid in Dera Ismail Khan in retaliation for the recent killing of one of its top commanders, Ustad Qureshi, by Pakistani security forces.

The Pakistani military reported Thursday that Qureshi was one of nine TTP members, including two suicide bombers, killed this week in an intelligence operation in Bajaur district near the Afghan border.

Pakistani officials claim that TTP operates from sanctuaries in Afghanistan with the support of the neighboring country's Islamist Taliban leaders.

Islamabad has reported a dramatic increase in TTP-led insurgent attacks in Pakistan since the Taliban regained power in Kabul three years ago. The violence has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Pakistanis across the country in the first ten months of this year alone, half of whom were security forces.

The Afghan Taliban denies claims that the TTP or other transnational militant groups have a presence in their territory, a claim disputed by recent security assessments by the United Nations and regional countries.

“We call for more visible and verifiable measures in Afghanistan to ensure that the territory of Afghanistan is not used by terrorists,” said a joint statement after the BRICS summit hosted by Russia this week.