2 killed as militants attack army vehicle in NW Pakistan

Militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal area of North Waziristan ambushed an army vehicle on Tuesday, leaving two people killed, an official statement said.

The Inter-Services Public Services, the media wing of the Pakistani army, said in a statement that those killed include a 21-year-old soldier and an officer who recently got passed from a military academy.

The vehicle was on the road when militants attacked it from the surrounding mountains, and fled the scene in North Waziristan Agency, a semi-autonomous tribal area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

No group or person has claimed the attack yet. This was the second incident of such attacks on a military vehicle in the agency over the past one week. The earlier attack left six people including three candidates for Pakistani army killed.

The agency once served as a hotbed of several local and foreign militant organizations, who used to carry out massive attacks not only in the agency, but across the whole country.

The country's military launched an armed offensive in the area in 2014 after which militancy has been reduced to a great extent.

The military said the whole North Waziristan area has been cleared of the militants and there are no remaining hideouts of them anywhere inside the agency.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)