Pakistani security forces have killed 23 fighters in two separate raids near the Afghan border as tensions simmer between Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan and India.
Forces launched a “targeted operation” on Wednesday in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kurram District, the military said in a statement on social media, referring to the fighters as “khawarij”, the term it uses for banned groups, including the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The raid led to an “intense” exchange of fire, killing 12 people. No Pakistani military casualties were reported.
Forces then raided another location in the same “general area” and killed 11 more people, the military said.
The killings add to more than 30 that the military has reported throughout the week as it carried out raids largely in the same province, following an Islamabad suicide bombing on November 11 that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 more.
Without providing evidence, Minister Shehbaz Sharif blamed India for the attack, while Pakistani Minister of Defence Khawaja Asif also implicated Afghanistan. Last week, Pakistan arrested four members of an Afghan cell it accused of taking part.
Pakistan has long alleged that fighter groups are backed by India and Afghanistan, a charge that New Delhi and Kabul deny. Afghanistan has blamed Islamabad for violating its sovereignty through military strikes.
Peace talks in Turkiye’s Istanbul between Afghanistan and Pakistan recently ended without resolution, but both sides maintain that a ceasefire, however fragile, still holds after an eruption of violence between the two.
The Pakistan Taliban has been emboldened since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 after the United States’s withdrawal.
In recent months, the Pakistan Taliban – which wants to overthrow the Pakistani government – has escalated its attacks, which surpassed a decade-old high in August, according to Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
In 2024, the number of incidents recorded surged to 856, up from 645 in 2023.
