Pakistani troops kill 10 militants responsible for attack on military base that left 8 soldiers dead

Local residents gather at a barricaded road leading to a military facility site, in Bannu, a city in northwestern Pakistan, Monday, July 15, 2024. A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle and at least one of his accomplices exploded his vest near the outer wall of a military facility in northwestern Pakistani city Bannu early Monday, wounding several civilians and damaging nearby homes, a local police official said. (AP Photo/Muhammad Hasib)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — All 10 militants who rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a Pakistani military facility were killed in an 18-hour operation, officials said Tuesday.

In its statement, the Pakistani military said eight soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber early Monday rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the outer wall of an army housing complex in Bannu, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A splinter group of Pakistani Taliban, led by a militant commander Gul Bahadur, claimed the attack, which has been denounced by the country's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and other officials.

The military said the suicide attack collapsed a portion of the wall and damaged nearby infrastructure, resulting in the killing of the eight soldiers.

Responding to the attack, security forces killed all ten attackers, it said.

The military said a “timely and effective response by the security forces prevented major catastrophe.”

Pakistan has consistently raised its concerns with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the military adds, “asking them to deny persistent use of Afghan soil by the terrorists and to take effective action against such elements.”

The military said Pakistan's armed forces “will keep defending the motherland and its people against this menace of terrorism and will take all necessary measures as deemed appropriate against these threats emanating from Afghanistan."

There was no immediate comment from Kabul.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks, mostly in the northwest which borders Afghanistan, in recent years.

Most such previous attacks have been blamed on Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. They are a separate group but also an ally of the Afghan Taliban. TTP has stepped up its attacks on security forces across the country since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.