By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The security forces killed eight militants in an intelligence-based operation along the Afghanistan border in North Waziristan district, the military said Thursday, recovering weapons and ammunition and using the episode to sharpen its criticism of the Taliban-led government in Kabul.
The Inter-Services Public Relations, the armed forces’ media wing, said forces detected a group of militants — referred to by the military as “khawarij,” a term it applies to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, also known as Fitna al-Khawarij — attempting to move along the porous frontier on Wednesday. In the ensuing engagement, all eight were killed, the ISPR statement said. It described the dead as members of an “Indian proxy Fitna al Khwarij” network. “Sanitisation operations are ongoing to eliminate any other Indian-sponsored khawarij in the area.”
It added that the clash “once again substantiates our repeated stance regarding [the] abject failure of [the] Afghan Taliban regime to ensure effective border management on their side of the border.” The statement demanded that the Afghan interim government “fulfil its obligations and deny the use of Afghan soil by khwarij and involvement of its citizens in terrorism inside Pakistan.”
The incident fits a pattern of intensified Pakistani counterterrorism activity in the northwest since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan authorities of allowing TTP sanctuaries to operate on their side of the border, charges the Taliban have rejected. The North Waziristan engagement occurred as Pakistan continues its broader Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, launched on the night of Feb. 26 after an unprovoked firing from the Afghan side. A five-day pause was observed from March 18 to 23 for Eid al-Fitr, but the Foreign Office said the campaign would resume and persist “until its objectives are achieved.” Pakistani officials have described the operation as targeting terrorist hideouts, some of them inside Afghanistan.
Just a day earlier, the ISPR announced that security forces had killed 13 militants linked to India in two separate intelligence-based operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province — 10 in the Bara area of Khyber district and three in Bannu district. The military has framed the intensified operations as part of the “Azm-e-Istehkam” counterterrorism vision, endorsed by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan.
In its Thursday statement, the ISPR said the “relentless counter-terrorism campaign … by security forces and law enforcement agencies of Pakistan will continue at full pace to wipe out the menace of foreign-sponsored and supported terrorism from the country.” The latest violence comes against the backdrop of a trilateral meeting Wednesday in the Chinese city of Urumqi involving officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. A Pakistani Foreign Ministry official described the session as focused on confidence-building measures rather than formal mediation, with discussion understood to include the possible reopening of trade routes. Pakistani leaders have grown increasingly vocal about what they call the Afghan Taliban’s unwillingness or inability to curb TTP activity. The group has claimed responsibility for a growing number of attacks inside Pakistan, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, since the Taliban takeover in Kabul. In its statement Thursday, the military reiterated its “unwavering” commitment to defending the country’s frontiers, signaling that operations along the 1,600-mile border are likely to continue.
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