KEY POINTS Seven army personnel, including a captain, were killed on Sunday in a roadside explosion in northwest Pakistan.
PM Sharif is present during Captain Faraz Ilyas’s funeral prayers at Chunian, a city in eastern Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD: One day after seven army personnel, including a captain, were murdered in northwest Pakistan by a roadside explosion, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pledged on Monday to eradicate “terrorism” from the nation.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army’s media wing, the explosion happened on Sunday when an improvised explosive device targeted a truck transporting the soldiers in the Lakki Marwat region of Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
KP, which borders Afghanistan, has seen a spike in violence in recent months, with many attacks on law enforcement, security personnel, and civilians. Although no organisation immediately took credit for the attack, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has taken credit for several previous strikes, is probably the organisation that would be under scrutiny.
PM Sharif wrote on his social media account X, “Deeply saddened by the martyrdom of Pak Army personnel including a captain in a targeted attack in Lakki Marwat District.” “We owe it to our brave soldiers and citizens to relentlessly eradicate terrorism from our country in order to atone for their sacrifices.”
In the eastern Pakistani city of Chunian, Sharif attended the burial prayers of Captain Faraz Ilyas, one of the seven army troops killed in the attack. The prime minister of Pakistan paid his respects to the late captain’s parents and other family members.
Sharif said to the father of the late captain, “We will not let this sacrifice go in vain.” “May Allah grant you endurance and maintain his guardianship.”
After that, Ilyas was buried with full military honours, and Sharif and the parents of the departed captain attended the solemn service.
The ISPR said in a different statement on Monday that it will not back down from its determination to combat militancy in the nation in the wake of assaults on its personnel.
The army’s propaganda wing declared, “Pakistan’s security forces are committed to eradicating the curse of terrorism and the sacrifices of our brave martyrs reinforce our resolve.”
The prime minister of Pakistan made the remarks as the nation experiences a resurgence of terrorist violence in its two western regions, KP and Balochistan, following the TTP’s termination of their shaky ceasefire with the government in November 2022.
According to authorities, in separate events in KP last week, three anti-polio vaccinators and two policeman were injured by gunmen, who also murdered at least four policemen and a prayer leader.Pakistan has attributed the recent spike in violence on terrorists operating out of Afghanistan, a neighbouring country. The claims are refuted by Kabul, which asserts that Islamabad is responsible for handling the internal problem of the escalating violence in Pakistan.
