Pakistan: 6 security personnel and 12 militants killed in anti-terror operations across…

NEW DELHI: The media wing of the Pakistan armed forces on Sunday said that six security personnel, including a senior police officer and 12 militants were killed in separate terror incidents and security operations in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces in the past two days.
According to the officials, four militants were killed in two separate incidents in Balochistan while, eight militants were killed in the Kot Sultan area of Kulachi tehsil in Dera Ismail Khan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the security forces carried out an operation against them.
The Inter-Services Public relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan armed forces added that the security forces recovered weapons, ammunition and explosives from the eliminated terrorists.
Meanwhile, a DSP and two cops were also killed and a constable was injured in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the armed miscreants in two separate incidents on Friday night.
The officials said DSP Gul Muhammad, along with other policemen, had set up a temporary checkpoint on the busy Peshawar-Karachi highway as part of police’s security preparations before the festival of Eid-ul-Fitr.
As they were returning from the checkpoint, armed men opened fire on the police van near Manjiwala Chowk, leaving the DSP and Constable Naseem Gul dead, the report said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack on policemen in Lakki Marwat. Taking to social media platform X, Sharif said, “Cowardly acts of terrorists cannot shake our resolve.”
K P Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur also denounced the militant attacks and directed the police authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice without delay.
In another attack the same night, a constable was also killed after unknown assailants sprayed bullets at him near his house in Sra Darga area.
According to a report in the Dawn, the constable was stationed in Miramshah town of North Waziristan district, and had returned to the village on leave.
Moreover, a police official was killed and another injured when a remote-controlled improvised explosive device went off in Mamund tehsil of Bajaur district on Saturday, according to the report.
A head constable of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) was killed by unknown people near the Mian Lal police post in the Tank district on Saturday night.
Notably, Pakistan has been facing a rise in violence in the wake of the Taliban seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
The surge in militant attacks on Pakistani security forces — many by the Pakistani Taliban — have strained relations between Islamabad and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.