DI KHAN: Four Levies force personnel along with a driver were martyred when their vehicle came under attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Dera Ismail Khan, The News reported on Sunday. The Levies personnel, according to the assistant commissioner, were attacked on their way to recover a stolen truck in a vehicle driven by private staff in tehsil Daraban . The bodies of Levies personnel have been shifted to Daraban hospital while an investigation was underway, added the official. Saturday’s attack comes as the province bears the brunt of rising militancy, especially since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.Play Video The security forces have been carrying out extensive anti-terror operations across the country to curb the menace of terrorism in both KP and Balochistan, the two provinces that abut Afghanistan.  On Saturday, as the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) announced that 23 terrorists were killed during the conduct of separate operations in Balochistan. As many as 18 Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers also embraced martyrdom during the Mangocher operation — on the night between January 31 and February 1 — when terrorists had attempted to establish roadblocks in the area. Reacting to the Balochistan operations, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir vowed terrorist outfits, controlled by foes disguised as friends. “Those who are acting as terrorist proxies of their foreign masters who have mastered the art of manifesting double standards of hunting with the hound and running with the hare are well known to us,” the army chief said during his visit to the province on Saturday. His remarks come as the year 2024 turned out to be the deadliest for Pakistan’s civil and military security forces in a decade with at least 685 fatalities and 444 terror attacks, according to “CRSS Annual Security Report 2024” issued by the Centre for Security and Strategic Studies. The violence took the heaviest toll on KP which topped in human losses with 1,616 fatalities, followed by Balochistan with 782 fatalities. In 2024, the country suffered 2,546 violence-linked fatalities and 2,267 injuries among civilians, security personnel and outlaws.