Security forces killed 12 fighters and lost one soldier while stopping a crossing from Afghanistan into Kurram, according to a statement from Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) published by Business Recorder. ISPR, the armed forces' media wing, said the group included men it calls Khwarij and members of the Afghan Taliban. Dawn and ARY News carried the same toll from the Kurram clash: 12 killed and one soldier dead.
The military said troops were already on high alert and blocked the attempt in an intense exchange of fire. It added that Afghan Taliban posts opened fire "to support the infiltration attempt". ISPR said precise fire from the troops then killed twelve Khwarij and Afghan Taliban.
Khwarij is the word ISPR uses for the fighters it says tried to cross. The release does not give another group name.
The soldier who was killed
Naib Subedar Hidayat Aman was killed in that exchange, ISPR said. He was 40 and a resident of Ghizer district. A naib subedar is a junior commissioned officer, a rank between the enlisted ranks and a commissioned officer.
The release said he fought while facing the infiltrators and paid "the ultimate sacrifice". ISPR used the word shahadat, its term for a soldier killed on duty.
The military's account of the border
ISPR placed the clash on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and said it supported Pakistan's view that the Afghan Taliban administration had not kept its territory from being used for such attacks. The release said the administration had instead helped those attacks, and had not met international counter-terrorism duties. Those lines are the military's case, and the reports do not include a reply from Kabul.
The same release said a sanitisation operation is under way, meaning a search for anyone still in the area. ISPR described those people as any other "Indian sponsored Kharji". That sponsorship claim is the military's; the published reports do not offer separate evidence.
What the operation does next
ISPR said the sweep sits inside Azm-e-Istehkam, a counter-terrorism campaign it says was approved by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan. The National Action Plan is the policy framework named in that approval. Security forces and law-enforcement agencies, the release said, will keep up that campaign "at full pace".
It added that the forces "remain resolute and unwavering" in defending the frontier, and that the deaths of soldiers strengthen that commitment. The statement on the Kurram fighting does not say when the clash began, how long the firing lasted, or whether anyone was captured. It also does not list any Pakistani injuries besides this one death.
