At least two members of security forces were killed in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region in an IED attack, Pakistan's military confirmed. This is the second attack after Sunday last week when four soldiers were killed in Quetta. 

The incident happened on Tuesday in Dassali district of North Waziristan province, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces said. Following the attack, security forces cordoned off the area and brief fighting erupted between the insurgents and the forces. 

In the operation, the military said they killed an insurgent. 

It is not yet clear whether the attack was orchestrated by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the group responsible for most attacks in the region. 

The Sunday attack last week, where four soldiers were killed, was owned by the TTP. The group, mostly based in the Waziristan region--a tribal mountainous area along the border with Afghanistan--has shown signs of regrouping in recent years--the first since they were driven out of the region in a large-scale military offensive in 2015. 

The attack has increased substantially--with an average of at least two attacks per week--in the last few months. Experts believe that the group, buoyant by the Afghan Taliban victory next door, will further increase its attacks against the Pakistan military. 

Hundreds of its fighters in the Afghan jails were released last month when the Afghan Taliban overran the country. Pakistan had earlier said that it will take up the TTP issue with the future government in Afghanistan. 

Last month, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a bus carrying Chinese workers, killing two Pakistani children playing by the roadside and wounding a Chinese national and two other Pakistanis in the port city of Gwadar.

Importantly, the group has stepped its attacks in the last two years, raising the toll among Pakistan security personnel. Projects funded by China under its flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have increasingly been targeted by militants. 

China, which had also expressed concern over the security situation in the country, has invested over 70 billion in various projects so far. These projects often come under attack by both Baloch and TTP insurgents. The former has for years been waging a low-level insurgency for an independent Baluchistan, one of the most mineral-rich provinces in the country. 

(SAM)