Pak Taliban claims responsibility for deadly cross-border Dir checkpoint attack

Islamabad, June 4(ANI): The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the recent cross-border militant attack on a security post in Pakistan's Upper Dir district.

Earlier this week, a fight had erupted in Upper Dir after hundreds of insurgents crossed over from Afghanistan and attacked a security check post in Pakistan.

The clash between Pakistani security forces and the militants left at least 30 troops, four civilians and 45 insurgents dead, according to a media report.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ahsen told a foreign news agency on the telephone from an undisclosed location that up to 40 to 50 of TTP fighters took part in the operation, and claimed that none of those fighters were killed in the clash with Pakistani security forces.

The TTP has previously brought fighters from across the porous border with Afghanistan to attack Pakistani security forces, but none were on the same scale as this week's Dir operation.

Senior TTP leader Maulana Fakir Mohammed said the group, with close ties to al Qaeda, had changed strategy and would now focus on large-scale attacks only on state targets like the one in Dir.

"Our new strategy of launching big attacks on military installations was aimed at causing demoralisation in the ranks of the security forces and tiring of the government," The News quoted the deputy TTP leader, as saying from an undisclosed location. (ANI)