By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: Pakistan’s military said on Friday that security forces had killed 33 militants in a series of counter-terrorism operations across Balochistan since 21 September, as the south-western province continues to experience a marked rise in terror violence.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the armed forces’ media wing, said the operations had targeted two groups — Fitna al-Khawarij and Fitna al-Hindustan — the state’s designations for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and a cluster of Balochistan-based separatist networks respectively. Islamabad uses the latter term to assert that India is backing and directing the insurgency in the province.
According to the ISPR statement, five militants were killed on Thursday when troops “busted additional terrorist hideouts” during an intense exchange of fire, part of an ongoing Operation Shaban. That brought the total number killed in that specific operation to 22.
“Weapons, ammunition and explosives were also recovered from khawarij locations,” the statement said, adding that the clearance effort in the area would continue “till the complete neutralisation of threat”.
A separate, intelligence-led raid was carried out on Friday in Nushki district, roughly 150 miles south-west of Quetta. The ISPR said troops had “effectively engaged” a militant hideout there, and that 11 fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight — language the military’s statement rendered as the fighters having been “sent to hell”.
The armed forces’ media wing said the wider campaign was being carried out under “Azm-i-Istehkam” — a national counter-terrorism framework signed off by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan. It vowed the operation would continue “at full pace to wipe out the menace of foreign-sponsored and -supported terrorism from the country”.
The latest operations come against a backdrop of escalating violence in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but most sparsely populated province, where separatist and jihadist groups have stepped up attacks on security convoys, checkpoints and infrastructure in recent months.
The number of terrorist attacks in the province rose seven per cent, from 83 in July to 89 in August, according to a monthly assessment by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based think tank that tracks militant violence nationally.
Friday’s announcement is the latest in a near-daily run of military statements detailing lethal clashes across the province. On Wednesday, the ISPR said troops had killed 19 fighters in separate operations in the Shaban, Kech and Quetta West areas. The bulk of those deaths — 13 — came during a clearance operation in Shaban, on the outskirts of Quetta, which had been under way since 21 September after intelligence reports pointed to multiple militant hideouts threatening the local population.
That round of fighting also claimed the life of a Pakistani soldier, who was martyred during the operations in Kech and Quetta West.
Two days earlier, on 22 September, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported that six fighters had been killed and nine suspects arrested during a raid in the Saran Tangi area of Balochistan, with a substantial quantity of ammunition and weapons seized. On the same day, security forces killed a further four fighters, described by officials as belonging to Fitna al-Hindustan, during an operation across two locations in Panjgur district — Koh-Prom and the Aphan area — after intelligence indicated armed militants were present there. A large quantity of arms and ammunition was recovered from the hideouts in that operation as well.
Together, the toll from the past week points to one of the most intensive short bursts of counter-terrorism activity the province has seen this year.
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