BIG escalation in Pakistan-Taliban war as Pak Army kills 23 TTP fighters near Afghan border, militants planned to…

Pakistan-Taliban war: In a major escalation in the ongoing hostilities between the Pakistan Army and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terror group, which is allegedly backed by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, Pakistani forces claimed to have killed at least 23 TTP fighters in separate encounters in northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan Army kills 23 TTP fighters in Kurram

In a statement, the Pakistan Army said 12 TTP fighters were gunned down during an operation in Kurram district of the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Thursday, while 11 militants of the banned outfit were killed in another engagement in the same area.

The twin operations in near the volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border were conducted after intelligence inputs reported the presence of TTP fighters in the Kurram district, and were an expansion of operations started on Wednesday, the army said.

“Capitalising on intelligence with respect to the presence of another group of khwarij, in the same general area, in another intelligence-based operation, the troops successfully neutralised eleven more khwarij,” the statement added.

Notably, the Pakistan had last year notified the banned TTP, aka the Pakistan Taliban, as “Fitna al-Khawarij”, a reference to a group in earlier Islamic history which was involved in violence.

Pakistan-Taliban war

Last month, Pakistan and Afghanistan were engaged in nearly two weeks of border hostilities, including a wave of Pakistani airstrikes in Paktika province that killed ten Afghan nationals, including three local cricketers.

The hostilities, which brought the two neighbours to the brink of an all-out war, ceased after a ceasefire agreement mediated by Qatar and Turkey, was signed by representatives of Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban in Qatari capital Doha. However, a larger peace agreement could not be reached as the second round of peace talks between Islamabad and Kabul broke down in Turkey’s Istanbul as the sides failed to reach a consensus.

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban of sheltering and supporting the TTP aka the Pakistani Taliban, a claimed repeatedly denied by Kabul.

(With inputs from agencies)