MULTAN: Pakistan’s counterterrorism police on Saturday said they had killed two militants from Al-Qaeda's subcontinental chapter in an overnight operation in eastern Punjab province.
Police said the militants had plans to carry out “subversive activities” in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan. The intelligence-based operation was underway at the militants’ hideout in Choti Bala area when they opened fire on the raiding party, triggering a shootout, counterterrorism official Imran Asghar said.
He said that two other militants escaped in the dark and police seized arms and ammunition.
The Dera Ghazi Khan district is where Pakistan’s three provinces — Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab — meet, and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is not far.
Militants from insurgency-wrecked Baluchistan and fighters linked to the banned Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, often take shelter in the district.
