According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), a Pakistan Army major accepted martyrdom following a firing engagement with militants in district Khyber’s Shakas area on Thursday.
The incident occurred when security forces began an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in the area on the night of July 5-6 after receiving information regarding the presence of terrorists, according to the ISPR.
Major Mian Abdullah Shah, who was commanding the operation from the front, discovered a group of militants after the “establishment of blocking positions to cut terrorist escape routes was underway.”
When the forces intercepted them, a fierce exchange of fire erupted, according to the ISPR, ending in the martyrdom of Major Shah, a 33-year-old Kohat resident.
According to the military’s media wing, the forces then apprehended three terrorists and their facilitators, and a sanitization operation is underway to destroy any remaining militants in the area.
“Pakistan’s security forces are determined to eliminate the threat of terrorism, and such sacrifices by our soldiers strengthen our resolve,”
The news comes only hours after a vehicle-borne suicide bomber blew himself up in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s North Waziristan province, killing at least three soldiers, the ISPR told.
The ISPR identified the martyred soldiers as Naib Subedar Sahib Khan, 41, of Mianwali; Naik Muhammad Ibrahim, 40, of Dera Ismail Khan; and Sepoy Jehangir Khan, 24, of Mardan. Three innocent civilians were also critically injured in the suicide blast.
Three days ago, a major was one of two military men who embraced martyrdom after terrorists “tried to ambush” a “combat patrol of security forces” in the Balor area of Balochistan’s Hoshab province.
Major Saqib Hussain and Naik Baqir Ali embraced martydorm as a result of the severe exchange of fire, according to the ISPR, while another soldier was injured.