Pak army loses 2 senior officers to IED blast

ISLAMABAD (PAN border on Sunday.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army’s media wing, identified the dead as Maj. Gen. Sanaullah, Lt. Col. Tauseef and Irfan Sattar. The blast happened in the Upper Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Sanaullah was general commanding officer (GCO) for Swat Division while Tauseef was commanding officer of the 33rd Baloch Regiment. They were on visit to army positions along the border.

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack, with the group’s spokesman Shahidullah Shahid saying the army officers were the target.

“Maj. Gen. Sanaullah and Lt. Col. Tauseef embraced martyrdom this morning. They were returning from visiting posts on the border,” the ISPR said in a statement.

The Pakistan army had made substantial sacrifices to protect the nation against the menace of terrorism and such cowardly acts by terrorists could not weaken the morale of the armed forces, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.

The casualties were taken to a local military hospital. Security forces cordoned off the site, mounting a search operation in the area to apprehend the perpetrators of the bomb attack. The army officer had been in the area for the last few days, visiting posts on the Durand Line.

mud

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