ISLAMABAD: Security forces have killed 24 Pakistani Taliban militants in two separate engagements in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the Pakistani military said on Friday.

In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks, mainly by the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), targeting security forces and police in KP, which borders Afghanistan.

The militants were killed in intelligence-based operations in KP’s Orakzai and Khyber districts conducted on reports about their presence, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.

“Sanitization operations are being conducted to eliminate any other Indian-sponsored kharji [TTP militant] found in the area,” the ISPR said.

There was no immediate response by New Delhi to the Pakistani military’s statement.

Pakistan recorded a 28 percent increase in militant attacks in Jan. as compared to the previous month, with 87 incidents occurring across the country, the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) said in its report this month. Of these, 38 attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 27 in Balochistan, where authorities have been battling a separatist insurgency, and two in the Punjab province.

Islamabad has frequently accused Afghanistan of allowing its soil and India of backing militant groups, including the TTP, for attacks against Pakistan. Kabul and New Delhi have consistently denied this.