By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Security forces killed 24 militants linked to a banned insurgent group in two separate intelligence-driven operations in the volatile northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the military said on Friday, as the country grapples with a persistent surge in terrorist attacks.
The clashes unfolded overnight between Feb. 4 and 5 in the districts of Orakzai and Khyber, according to a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media arm of Pakistan’s armed forces. The militants, described by the military as “khwarij” — a derogatory term for members of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), often labeled as “Indian Proxy Fitna Al Khwarij” — were targeted in intelligence-based operations.
In Orakzai, troops engaged a group of militants at a reported hideout, leading to an intense firefight that resulted in the deaths of 14 insurgents. “During the conduct of operation, own troops effectively engaged the khwarij location and after an intense fire exchange, fourteen khwarij were sent to hell,” the ISPR statement said. A similar operation in Khyber district claimed the lives of 10 more militants, with the military reporting that they were “effectively neutralised.”
Following the engagements, security forces launched sanitisation sweeps in both areas to root out any remaining threats, the statement added, emphasising efforts to “eliminate any other Indian sponsored kharji found in the area.” The operations were part of the broader counterterrorism campaign known as “Azm e Istehkam,” endorsed by the federal government’s Apex Committee on the National Action Plan. The ISPR vowed that such efforts by security forces and law enforcement agencies “will continue at full pace to wipe out the menace of foreign sponsored and supported terrorism from the country.”
The latest killings come on the heels of similar actions in January, when 11 militants were eliminated in two intelligence-based operations in the same province. They also follow a major offensive early this month dubbed Operation Radd-ul-Fitna 1, during which at least 216 terrorists were killed in response to coordinated attacks by militants associated with “Fitna al-Hindustan” across Balochistan province. Those assaults, which targeted civilians, left 36 innocent people dead — including women and children — along with 22 members of security and law enforcement agencies.
Balochistan’s chief minister, Sarfraz Bugti, described the militants’ tactics at the time as ruthless, saying they had attacked various parts of the province and “deliberately used civilians as human shields.” He pointed to Afghanistan as a source of the threat, asserting that “Afghan soil is being used against Pakistan” and that militant leaders continue to operate from across the border.
Pakistan has endured a sharp uptick in cross-border terrorist incidents since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan — both sharing porous frontiers with Afghanistan — bearing the brunt of the violence. The TTP, which has ideological ties to the Afghan Taliban, ended a fragile ceasefire with the government in November 2022 and pledged to ramp up attacks, fueling the escalation.
A report from the Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies highlighted the severity of the crisis in 2025, documenting a 34 percent increase in terrorist attacks and a 21 percent rise in related fatalities compared to the previous year. Despite Pakistani forces claiming record numbers of militant deaths, the violence showed no signs of abating. In a Jan. 6 news conference, ISPR Director General Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry provided a stark overview of the previous year’s counterterrorism efforts. He reported that law enforcement agencies had conducted 75,175 intelligence-based operations nationwide, with 14,658 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 58,778 in Balochistan, and 1,739 in other regions. Chaudhry noted 5,397 terrorism incidents across the country, including 3,811 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,557 in Balochistan, and just 29 elsewhere. He added that 2,597 terrorists were killed in these operations, and detailed 10 major attacks that deliberately targeted civilians and soft targets, with Afghan militants implicated in every case.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
