“Terrorists movement and concentration in Gawardesh, Pitigal, Barg-e-Matel and Batash areas of Nuristan and Kunar provinces of Afghanistan had already been picked up and were timely shared with the Interim Afghan government. Owing to the heightened threat environment, our own posts were already on high alert. The valiant soldiers fought bravely and repulsed the attacks inflicting heavy casualties on the terrorists,” the ISPR explained. Sanitization of the area is being carried out to eliminate any other terrorists found in the area.
The movement inside Pakistan is not picked up and that’s a concern. They seem to travel from border to different cities. However, it seems that :
1. TTP’s mission profile dictates to cross border from Afghanistan and carry out attack on the target area inside Pakistan. In this case they were heavily equipped and in large number.
2. Usually the attack inside a city of Pakistan, say Quetta, would mean, TTP entered, met local asset, got weapons etc from local asset, and attacked an installation or installed IEDs on routes. Those who survived the attack, went back into Afghanistan and came back for an attack again at some later stage.