ISLAMABAD: Three Frontiers Corps personnel were martyred when suspected terrorists opened fire on them from across the Pak-Afghan border in Mohmand Agency on Friday, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said. The troops were targeted as they were busy in construction of a new border post at Shunkrai area of Mohmand tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. A protection party that was accompanying the troops responded to the attack, killing five suspected terrorists and leaving as many injured, the ISPR said. The fleeing terrorists could be seen carrying with them the bodies of killed companions, the ISPR said. The military’s media wing maintained that through such attacks, Pakistan was “paying [the] price of Afghan security forces’ lack of capacity and ungoverned spaces on Afghan side of the border.” Last month, two Pakistani troops – among them a captain – were martyred in a cross-border attack by Afghanistan-based terrorists in Bajaur Agency. Pakistani officials have repeatedly said that the Taliban terrorists, who fled a series of military operations in tribal regions, have found safe havens in northern, eastern and northeastern Afghanistan. These terrorists use their sanctuaries as a springboard for launching cross-border attacks on Pakistani military’s border posts and on civilian population. Pakistan has already started fencing of its long and porous border with Afghanistan to check the movement of Taliban terrorists from Afghanistan. Kabul, however, is opposed to the fencing of border which it claims is disputed. Separately, the Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan killed four terrorists in two separate operations in Sibbi and Kech districts of the the province, according to ISPR. The FC personnel conducted a search operation in the northern mountainous region of Sibbi on suspicion of the presence of terrorists. Two terrorists, who were involved in threatening the locals, were killed in retaliatory firing by the security personnel during the operation, the ISPR said in a statement. In a separate operation, FC troops raided a terrorist hideout in Turbat. During the operation, two terrorists were gunned down in encounter with the paramilitary forces, the ISPR statement said. Published in Daily Times, December 23rd 2017.