Pakistani security forces Sunday carried out a ground operation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, followed by "calibrated strikes" against militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 fighters, officials said.

In a post on X, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country.

It comes a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national in wounded condition.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement Saturday night.

Tarar said Pakistan's 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.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and allied militant groups for most of the violence. The TTP is a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allies. The Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.

Tarar said the security forces first conducted an intelligence-based ground operation against a group of terrorists near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Bajaur, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. "As a result of precise and skillful engagement, high value Khwarji Commander Khan Farosh" was killed along with three others.

He said that, acting on intelligence, precise targeting of terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij was also carried out in the border region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. Three targets in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces were destroyed during the precision strikes, killing 25 terrorists, he said.

Tarar said large quantities of weapons and ammunition stored at the targeted marakiz and hideouts were also destroyed.

"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," he said.

Pakistan since last year has carried out multiple strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan, targeting alleged hideouts of TTP and other militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan's Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the TTP. Kabul denies the charge.

Source