Pakistan's security forces on Sunday carried out what they claimed was an intelligence-based ground operation near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, followed by what Information Minister Attaullah Tarar described as "calibrated strikes" on militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 people.
Tarar said the action was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country. The operation came a day after militants armed with guns and explosives attacked the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in Karachi, killing three soldiers.
Security forces killed three attackers in the Karachi assault and arrested another wounded assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Saturday night.
In a post on X, Tarar said the latest operation along the Afghan border targeted the hideouts and safe havens of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, a term Pakistan uses for the Pakistani Taliban. He said security forces first conducted an intelligence-based ground operation against a group of terrorists near the border in Bajaur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. "As a result of precise and skillful engagement, high value Khwarji Commander Khan Farosh" was killed along with three others, he said.
Tarar said that, acting on intelligence, Pakistan also carried out precise targeting of terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij along the frontier. He said three targets in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces were destroyed in the strikes, killing 25 terrorists. Large quantities of weapons and ammunition stored at the targeted marakiz and hideouts were also destroyed, he said.
Pakistan has seen a rise in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and allied groups for most of the violence. The TTP is separate from the Afghan Taliban, though the two are allies. The Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021.
Tarar said, "Pakistan has always strived for maintaining peace and stability in the region, but at the same time shall not compromise on the safety and security of our citizens, which remains our top priority". Since last year, Pakistan has carried out multiple strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan, targeting alleged hideouts of the TTP and other militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan's Taliban government of sheltering militants behind deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the TTP, a charge Kabul denies.
Overall, the latest Pakistani operation killed 29 people in a ground action near the border and strikes on targets across the frontier, days after a deadly militant attack on the Rangers' headquarters in Karachi.
Source: PTI