ISLAMABAD: Two militants, including a high-value target (HVT), were killed in a shootout with Pakistani security forces in the country’s restive northwest on Thursday, the Pakistani military said.
The shootout occurred during an intelligence-based operation in the Dera Ismail Khan district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.
The deceased militants were identified as HVT Ashraf Sheikh and Burhan Ullah.
“Weapons, ammunition and explosives were also recovered from the killed terrorists who remained actively involved in numerous terrorist activities including target killing of innocent civilians,” the ISPR said in a statement.
“Sanitization operation is being conducted to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area.”
The development comes amid a rise in militant violence in Pakistan’s northwestern and southwestern regions as the South Asian country heads to national elections on February 8.
A national assembly candidate was shot dead on Wednesday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while another political leader was shot dead in his party’s election office in Balochistan on the same day.
On Tuesday, a bomb attack following an election rally killed four people in Balochistan. Daesh claimed responsibility.
The attacks first surged after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called off its months-long truce with the government in Islamabad more than a year ago. The militant group, which is said to have sanctuaries in the neighboring Afghanistan, is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
However, Pakistan’s Caretaker Interior Minister Gohar Ejaz said on Thursday the elections would go ahead as scheduled, following a meeting summoned by the election commission to discuss increasing pre-poll violence in the country.
