KARACHI: The Pakistan army said on Sunday eight militants had been killed in a shootout during an operation in the country’s northwestern South Waziristan district, once a stronghold of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The TTP emerged to fight the Pakistani state and enforce its own harsh brand of Islam in the years after US-led allied forces intervened in neighboring Afghanistan to oust its ruling Taliban in 2001 and drive them over the border into Pakistan.
The TTP has ramped up attacks since announcing the end of an Afghan Taliban-brokered cease-fire with Islamabad last November.
“On 26 November 2023, security forces conducted an intelligence based operation in general area Sararogha, South Waziristan District, on reported presence of terrorists,” the Pakistan army’s media wing said.
“During the conduct of operation, intense fire exchange took place between own troops and terrorists as a result of which eight terrorists were sent to hell.”
The military said the targeted militants had been involved in “numerous terrorist activities against security forces as well innocent civilians” and arms, ammunition and explosives were recovered from them.
The South and North Waziristan districts had served for decades as a safe haven for militants until the military carried out a major operation after an attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in 2014 killed more than 150 people, mostly school children.
After the years-long operation, the army announced it had cleared the northwestern regions bordering Afghanistan of local and foreign militants. But attacks have continued and risen in intensity in recent months, raising concerns that the TTP have found sanctuaries in Afghanistan and are regrouping in the area.
The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allies of the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 as the US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout. Kabul denies it allows militants to harbor on its soil.
