By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Security forces killed 13 militants in two separate intelligence-led operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, the military said on Friday, as a separate attack on a local peace committee in the same restive region left seven people dead, including a former Taliban fighter who had renounced violence.
The military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations, said in a statement that 10 militants were killed late Wednesday and early Thursday in the Paharkhel area of Lakki Marwat district after troops surrounded a compound where members of Fitna al-Khawarij, a pejorative term the government uses for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, were hiding. An intense exchange of fire followed, the statement said, and all 10 militants were “sent to hell.”
In a second operation in Dera Ismail Khan district, three more militants were killed in a firefight, the military said. Weapons and ammunition were recovered from the dead fighters, who, the statement added, had been “actively involved in numerous terrorist activities against the security forces, law enforcement agencies, and the target killing of innocent civilians”. Sanitisation operations are continuing in both areas, the military said, and the campaign against the “foreign-sponsored and supported terrorism” would continue under the banner of Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, the army’s counterinsurgency drive.
The operations came as terrorist violence has surged across Pakistan, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and neighboring Balochistan, since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. A police report cited by local officials said the province recorded more than 600 terrorist incidents in the first eight months of 2025 alone, in which at least 79 police officers and 138 civilians were killed.
Hours before the military announced the overnight operations, a separate attack underscored the deteriorating security situation. Gunmen stormed a baithak, or guesthouse, belonging to a local peace committee in Bannu district on Thursday night and opened fire, killing seven people, police officials said. Among the dead was a former militant described by police as a “good Talib”, the term used for insurgents who laid down arms and joined government-backed village defence committees. The other six victims were his relatives.
Relatives told police the assault stemmed from a private family dispute over a previous killing, according to the first information report filed at Havaid police station. But officers said privately that the family had taken that position to avoid drawing retaliatory attacks. The complaint named three suspects, including a known TTP commander, who led a larger group of armed men.
Peace committees were formed in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to help law enforcement agencies protect communities from militant violence. Former insurgents who agree to work with the state are frequently incorporated into them, making the committees frequent targets for the TTP, which views such defectors as traitors.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the Bannu attack, calling it the work of “Fitna-al-Khawarij.” “Such cowardly acts, aimed at sabotaging peace efforts, expose the evil intentions of the Fitna-al-Khawarij to create unrest in Pakistan,” Sharif said in a statement released by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan. “These cowardly actions cannot, at any cost, weaken the resolve of the people. The entire nation stands united to defeat anti-state elements.”
Analysts say the resurgence of the Pakistani Taliban, emboldened by their Afghan counterparts’ return to power and the release of thousands of imprisoned fighters after 2021, has placed immense strain on Pakistan’s security forces and civilian governance in the former tribal areas along the Afghan border. Despite repeated military offensives and the government’s insistence that terrorism will be eradicated, attacks on security posts, civilian targets and peace committee members have become near-daily occurrences in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, leaving local populations caught between militant retribution and the heavy-handed response of the state.
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