ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces have killed seven militants during operations in the country’s western provinces that border Afghanistan, the Pakistani interior ministry said on Tuesday, amid a surge in militancy in the South Asian nation.

Pakistan has been battling twin insurgencies by religiously motivated groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and ethnic Baloch separatists in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces that border Afghanistan.

The country has seen a surge in militant attacks in recent weeks, which prompted Islamabad to conduct airstrikes against what it called militant hideouts in Afghanistan. The neighbors have given conflicting accounts of casualties in the strikes.

In the latest intelligence-based operations, security forces killed five militants in Bara tehsil of KP’s Khyber district and another two militants in Chagai district of Balochistan, according to the Pakistani interior ministry.

“We highly value the successful operations conducted by the security forces against khawarij (militants) and their facilitators,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi was quoted as saying by his ministry.

“The khawarij will be completely eliminated with the nation’s support.”

The development came a day after three traffic policemen were killed and two passers-by injured in a gun attack on their van in KP, police said.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of sheltering TTP and other militants who Islamabad says use Afghan territory to plan and carry out attacks across the border. Kabul denies providing militants safe havens and says Pakistan’s security problems are an internal matter.

Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan on Sept. 21, saying it had killed 28 militants. The Taliban said Pakistan airstrikes had killed three civilians. Islamabad struck 10 more locations in Afghanistan on Thursday after Islamabad said drones had entered Pakistani airspace from Afghanistan.

The incursions followed a gun-and-bomb assault on a police compound in KP’s Kohat on Sept. 18, which killed 23 people, including 17 police officers, according to police and counterterrorism officials. A militant faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur claimed responsibility for the attack.

On Saturday, the TTP claimed responsibility for an attack near the Aman Mela checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan district that killed at least 12 people and wounded over 30, according to police officials.