By Iftikhar Shirazi @ Dawn.com, November 4, 2023
Nine terrorists were killed in a clearance operation after the Pakistan Army foiled a terrorist attack on the Mianwali Training Air Base of the Pakistan Air Force in the early hours of Saturday, the military’s media wing said.
The development comes on the heels of a series of incidents that left at least 17 soldiers martyred in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
They include a militant attack in Gwadar, a remote-controlled bomb explosion in Dera Ismail Khan and a security operation in KP’s Lakki Marwat. A fourth incident, another remote-controlled blast in Dl Khan, had left five people dead and at least 24 injured, including police officials.
In a statement issued in the morning, the Inter-Services Public Relations had said the attack on the air base had been foiled, with three terrorists “neutralised” and three others “cornered/isolated”.
In an afternoon update, the military confirmed that the “combing and clearance operation at PAF Training Airbase Mianwali has been concluded and all nine terrorists have been sent to hell”.
It added that the operation was launched to “eliminate any potential threat in the surrounding area following the cowardly and failed terrorist attack on the base this morning”.
The ISPR further said that no damage had been done to any of the PAF’s functional operational assets, while only some damage was done to three already phased-out non-operational aircraft during the attack [....]