ISLAMABAD: Six Pakistani Taliban militants were killed in an encounter with counter-terrorism department (CTD) personnel in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, police said late Friday.
CTD personnel conducted an intelligence-based operation against Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, in Shagai area of Lakki Marwat district, according to a CTD spokesman.
The militants opened fire on the CTD team upon seeing them and six TTP members were killed in retaliatory fire, with arms and ammunition recovered from the site.
“The process of identification of the deceased terrorists is underway, after which action will be taken against their facilitators and other associates,” the CTD spokesman said in a statement.
The militants were killed hours after six policemen were killed when an explosion hit their vehicle in the same district, the Pakistani interior ministry said.
Pakistan has struggled to contain a surge in militant attacks in KP, which borders Afghanistan, by the Pakistani Taliban, who have mounted assaults since the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of failing to rein in militant groups that it says use Afghan soil to plan and launch attacks in Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies.
Last month, Pakistan conducted air strikes against what it said were Pakistani Taliban and Daesh targets in Afghanistan, provoking the Afghan side to retaliate across their shared border. The two neighbors have since been locked in a conflict.
