File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP
Officials say two militants killed, three others wounded in subsequent search operation.
Four soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Kurram Agency on Tuesday, officials said.
The bomb exploded in the village of Warmagai in Kurram, one of the seven autonomous tribal districts bordering Afghanistan where militants rose up against the Pakistani state in 2004.
“At least four soldiers were martyred when a bomb planted on a roadside hit a security forces convoy,” said a senior security official. Another official confirmed the attack and casualties, and said that immediately after the bombing security forces launched a search operation in which two militants were killed and three others wounded.
The vehicle belonged to a bomb-disposal squad whose mission was to travel ahead of a convoy to clear the road, the second official said.
The Pakistani Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack in an email to media outlets.
Pakistan began a long-awaited push to clear insurgent bases from the North Waziristan last June after a bloody Taliban attack on Karachi airport finally sank faltering peace talks. The Army has intensified its offensive since the Taliban’s massacre of 150 people, 134 of them children, in a school in Peshawar in December.