[Dawn] A senior military officer was among the five security officials killed in clashes with militants in Orakzai tribal region on Friday, a senior security official said.A lieutenant colonel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps was killed along with four others, when militants launched a counter-attack to wrestle back the control of a key post in the regional headquarters of Kalaya, the official said.
| He was only an FC officer. It's not like he was regular Army or the ISI, so even the posturing will be perfunctory. |
The official said that 27 militants had been killed during the exchange of fire. "Some of them appear to be Uzbeks", the official said.
He said that the group of militants appeared to make a grandstand to "fight till the end" after finding it difficult to get away to the neighbouring Terah Valley in Khyber tribal region. "Looks like these guys were stuck and could not get away like others of their comrades and decided to launch a counter-attack and make a grandstand", the security official said, requesting he not be named.
The clash occurred on the third day of the military operation in Orakzai, a militant stronghold that also served as a second base to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan -- an umbrella organization of several militant groups operating in the tribal regions.