31 militants were killed, while three security personnel lost their lives during the clash in Bajaur agency.

At least 37 people, 31 of them militants and four Pakistan Army soldiers, including an officer, were killed and several others received injuries in fierce fighting between security forces and Afghanistan-based Pakistani militants in the mountainous Batwar area of Salarzai tehsil of Bajaur Agency on Monday.

 “During the clash, 31 militants were killed, while three security personnel” lost their lives, said a senior official of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), which is leading the operations to purge the area of militant presence. 
Among the dead, two were members of the Salarzai Amn Lashkar, who have been fighting side by side with the security forces and had given a tough time to militants hiding in narrow valleys in the mountains in Salarzai tehsil near the Afghan border. According to sources, around 300 militants from Malakand and Bajaur tribal regions based in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces had jointly launched the attack from their bases in Afghanistan on Salarzai tehsil in Bajaur Agency on August 23 and took control of six small villages near the Afghan border.

Meanwhile, spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Ihsanullah Ihsan in an email to media organisations claimed they had killed several Pakistani soldiers and members of the peace committee during the four days of fighting.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001 when Pakistan joined an alliance with the United States in Washington’s so-called war on terror.