34 dead in Lakki Marwat attack

ISLAMABAD (PAN): Thirteen Pakistani troops, a dozen armed insurgents and eleven civilians were killed after a group of suicide bombers stormed a military post in northwestern Khyber Pakhunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said.

The brazen attack involved 30 insurgents who attacked the major post in the Sarai Nawrang area of Lakki Marwat town, police officer Arif Khan told reporters.

A dozen others army and paramilitary soldiers were wounded in the attack, he said, claiming as many of the attackers were also killed during the clash, which occurred around 240 kilometres south of Peshawar.

The civilians were killed when one of the suicide bombers ran into a house as security forces attempted to repel the attackers from the checkpost.

Khan said the bomber entered a nearby house in a residential colony and blew himself up. Four children, three women and four men were killed there. The blast also damaged four houses in the colony..

A spokesman for the Tehreek-i-Taliban, Ihsanullah Ihsan, claimed responsibility for the group attack that he said was executed in retaliation to the assassination of their two commanders in a US drone strike in the North Waziristan.

He disputed 12 militants were killed, saying they had sent only four suicide bombers. “We sent only four suicide bombers to attack this checkpost. We attacked it to avenge the killing of two of our friends in a recent drone strike,” said Ihsan.

myn/ma

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