By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: Security forces killed five militants, including a commander of a group linked to India, during an intelligence-led raid in Balochistan’s Panjgur district on Monday, as the province continues to bear the brunt of a sustained militant campaign that has claimed hundreds of lives this year.
The operation, carried out in the Sarkini and Chedgi areas under the umbrella of Operation Rad-ul-Fitna-3, targeted fighters from Fitna al-Hindustan, according to security sources. Among those killed was the group’s commander, identified as Wazir, son of Jamal.
Troops recovered four motorcycles, machine guns, other heavy weapons and a substantial cache of ammunition from the site, sources said. The men killed were accused of involvement in robbery, extortion, kidnapping and a string of attacks on traders and ordinary civilians in the district.
A clearance operation remains underway in the area as forces work to root out any remaining militants linked to the group, security sources added.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi commended the personnel involved, describing the raid as a further demonstration of the security forces’ resolve against terrorism. In a statement issued after the operation, he said Pakistan’s “courageous troops” were continuing their campaign to purge Balochistan of militants and restore lasting peace to the province.
Naqvi said the nation stood united behind the security forces, and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to backing their efforts to eliminate terrorism “from the country”.
The Panjgur raid follows a much larger operation a day earlier, in which security forces said they had killed 15 India-backed militants from Fitna al-Khawarij in a series of intelligence-based operations spanning eight districts of Balochistan — Mastung, Bolan, Washuk, Awaran, Sibi, Khuzdar, Harnai and Nushki — also conducted under Rad-ul-Fitna-3.
The back-to-back operations underscore the scale of the security challenge facing Balochistan and neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both of which have seen a marked escalation in militant violence since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Figures compiled by the Centre for Research and Security Studies paint a stark picture of the toll this year. The two provinces accounted for nearly 96 per cent of all violence-related deaths recorded nationwide in the second quarter of 2026, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the worst affected. Of 740 deaths tied to militant violence in the quarter, more than 61 per cent — 475 people — were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while Balochistan recorded 265 deaths, or 34 per cent of the total.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also logged the highest number of violent incidents in the period, with 151 attacks amounting to 57 per cent of the national total, the report found. Balochistan recorded a further 94 incidents, or 35 per cent — figures that place the two provinces at the centre of Pakistan’s ongoing militant insurgency.
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