By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Security forces have killed a high-value terrorist commander and four other militants on Thursday in an intelligence-based operation in the Spinwam area of North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said.
The slain commander, identified as Kharji Umar, also known as Jan Mir and Tor Saqib, carried a bounty of 3 million Pakistani rupees on his head. A ringleader of the group the Pakistani state calls Fitna al Khawarij — its term for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan — he was described by officials as the mastermind behind multiple attacks on security forces and civilians.
He had also built an extensive network of underground bunkers, tunnels and explosive traps around the Bubali Mosque in Spinwam, the sources said.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi praised the operation, calling the elimination of the commander a “major success.” In a statement issued by the Interior Ministry, Naqvi said terrorists and their facilitators “will not be allowed to thrive under any circumstances.”
The raid showed the Pakistani military’s intensified counterterrorism campaign in the northwest, where militancy has surged since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Pakistani officials have repeatedly pressed the Taliban-led government to dismantle sanctuaries used by the TTP and other groups, but Islamabad says those appeals have produced little concrete action.
The Spinwam operation came days after the military’s Inter-Services Public Relations announced that security forces had killed 22 India-sponsored militants in a separate sanitization drive in the Shewa general area of North Waziristan. That operation, launched May 17 on the basis of credible intelligence about the presence of khwarij — the state’s term for TTP fighters — involved intense firefights over a 24-hour period. Weapons and ammunition were recovered from the dead militants, who the military said had been involved in multiple terrorist activities in the region. Evidence gathered at the site indicated the militants had coerced local residents and used them as human shields, the military statement said.
The army has described the broader campaign as part of the national counterterrorism framework known as “Azm-e-Istehkam,” vowing to continue operations at full pace to eliminate foreign-sponsored terrorism.
Militancy has risen sharply in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces since the 2021 fall of the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Attacks have frequently targeted security personnel and law enforcement agencies. Last week, a major-ranked officer was among five soldiers killed during a sanitization operation in Balochistan’s Barkhan district. Earlier this month, security forces killed five militants in two separate engagements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts. In early April, eight terrorists were killed along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in North Waziristan.
The resurgence has prompted Pakistani authorities to accelerate intelligence-driven raids and area-clearance operations across the tribal districts bordering Afghanistan. Officials maintain that many of the attacks are planned from safe havens on Afghan soil, a charge the Taliban administration in Kabul has consistently denied or downplayed.
Security sources said Thursday’s Spinwam raid was a targeted strike based on precise intelligence. The elimination of Umar was seen inside the government as a significant blow to the TTP’s operational network in the region, though officials cautioned that the group retains the ability to regroup and launch fresh attacks.
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