At least ten members of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps have been killed in an armed attack on a security post near Dera Ismail Khan in the country’s northwest, according to Pakistani police.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack, saying it was in retaliation for the killing of one of their senior commanders, Ustad Qureshi, who was killed in a Pakistani army intelligence operation in the Bajaur region bordering Afghanistan.

According to security sources, a large group of militants attacked the checkpoint and killed a number of Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, who refused to reveal their identities due to the sensitive security situation.

Pakistan is facing a surge in militant attacks in the northwest and a separatist insurgency in the south, and Islamabad accuses the Pakistani Taliban of using Afghan territory as a base for operations, which the Afghan government denies.