Pakistan has blamed India for “orchestrating and planning” the terror attack in its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that killed at least 13 soldiers and wounded dozens of others, including civilians.
Security officials said the coordinated attack occurred when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near a bomb disposal unit vehicle of the 22nd Frontier Force Regiment.
The attack was claimed by a faction of the terrorist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
In a statement, Pakistan Army’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) described the attack as a cowardly act planned and orchestrated by the “terrorist state of India” and executed by its proxy, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Rejecting the allegation, the Indian External Affairs Ministry said:
“We have seen an official statement by the Pakistan Army seeking to blame India for the attack in Waziristan on 28 June. We reject this statement with the contempt it deserves.”
The attack is one of the deadliest single-day attacks on security forces in recent months in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “strongly condemned” the attack and praised the army for the operation that killed the 14 terrorists, according to a Prime Minister’s Office statement.
Tit-for-tat strikes
The militaries of India and Pakistan had been engaged in one of their most serious confrontations in decades in May this year, when India struck targets inside Pakistan, which it said were affiliated with those responsible for the killing of 26 tourists in India-administered Kashmir.
The four-day tit-for-tat strikes between the Indian and Pakistani militaries, in which around 60 people were killed on both sides, raised fears of an all-out war between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Tensions de-escalated after the United States intervened as Pakistan claimed to have shot down six Indian jets, including the French-made Rafale fighters.
Islamabad denied any involvement and called for a joint investigation to establish who was behind the attack.
Pakistan also said that the Indian missile targeted religious institutions and killed civilians.
Pakistan denied ties to the attackers and called for an international probe, which New Delhi has rejected.
India is still probing the incident and has not publicly offered any evidence linking Islamabad with the attack.
