At least 23 civilians – including women and children – were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday after the Pakistan government decided to launch an airstrike on its own people, news agency AFP reported citing sources.Hours after the airstrike, neither the Pakistan military, nor the government has released an official statement yet.A security officer based in Peshawar, who confirmed the death toll, told AFP that there are “dozens of TTP hideouts” in the area where militants reside with their families. He, however, refused to say who had carried out the assault.“The jets targeted four houses, which were completely destroyed,” he said, asking not to be named.“Tirah is near the Pakistan-Afghan border and is home to multiple TTP hideouts. In recent months, there have been several attacks on security forces in this area.”What could be the reason?The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, which shares its border with Afghanistan, is believed to be infested by numerous terrorists, the region has also witnessed a rapid rise of militancy.The Pakistani Taliban (TTP) – which has stepped up its campaign of violence against security forces- is also believed to be headquartered in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region.Why is Khyber Province tough to tackle?After the soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, several Islamic fundamentalist militias were funded in this region as an act of resistance. These groups were also supported by Pakistan’s spy agency ISI.After the USSR retreated from Afghanistan in 1988, many of these groups, with a large cache of arms and ammunition, stayed active in the Khyber region. Many more militants poured into the region after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, leading to the fall of Taliban.Tehreek-e-Taliban was formed in the late 2000s in the mountainous, rugged, and difficult to access region.‘Attack on unarmed civilians’Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Iqbal Afridi accused the military of launching an “attack on unarmed civilians.”“It was the security force’s aircraft that carried out the shelling. It’s their shelling that killed 23 people,” Afridi said.“This assault by the security forces is nothing less than an attack on unarmed civilians,” he added.
