Pakistani Soldier Killed in Militant Attack on Polio Vaccination Team

A Pakistani soldier was killed on Wednesday when militants opened fire on a polio vaccination team, the country’s military said, in the latest attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

Attempts to eradicate polio in Pakistan have been hit by attacks targeting inoculation teams that have claimed hundreds of lives in over a decade.

“Terrorists attempted to disrupt the ongoing polio campaign by firing on the members of the polio team,” the military said in a statement about the assault in the former tribal areas that border Afghanistan.

A soldier deployed to protect the vaccination team was killed during an exchange of fire, it added.

Islamist opposition to all forms of inoculation grew after the US Central Intelligence Agency organised a fake vaccination drive to help track down Al-Qaeda’s former leader Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is waging a campaign against security forces, claimed the attack in a statement to media.

Pakistan is grappling with an uptick in militancy since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan.

North Waziristan has historically been a hive of militancy and was the target of a long-running Pakistani military offensive and US drone strikes during the post-9/11 occupation of Afghanistan.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)