ISLAMABAD: Two militants were killed in a shootout with Pakistani troops in the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the Pakistani military said on Sunday, amid a surge in militant violence.

The militants were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in the North Waziristan tribal district, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.

Security forces also seized weapons and explosives from the scene.

“Sanitization operation is being conducted to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area,” the ISPR said in a statement.

The statement came a day after gunmen ambushed a police vehicle in the Lakki Marwat district, killing a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) and a constable.

Umar Marwat, a militant commander from the district, claimed responsibility for the attack and alleged the deputy superintendent had been active in operations against the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in the area.

In a separate incident in KP’s Bajaur tribal district, one police officer was killed and another was injured on Saturday in a roadside blast. Also on Saturday, Pakistan’s military said that security forces had killed eight militants in the Dera Ismail Khan district.

The incidents come at a time of renewed militant violence in Pakistan’s northwestern and southwestern regions that border Afghanistan. The violence initially picked up after the TTP called off its fragile, months-long truce with the government in November 2022.

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded blame in recent months over who is responsible for the recent spate of militant attacks in Pakistan.

Islamabad says the attacks are launched mostly by TTP members who operate from safe havens in Afghanistan. Kabul denies this and blames Islamabad for not being able to handle its own security challenges.