ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan’s security forces carried out targeted operations against alleged militant hideouts under Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, including intelligence-based ground operations in Bajaur and strikes on militant camps in border areas.
According to Tarar, security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Bajaur in which Jamaat-ul-Ahrar commander Khan Forosh alias Zabal was killed along with three other militants. He said several other militants were also injured during the operation.
The minister added that overnight operations between June 28 and 29 targeted alleged militant camps and operational centres in the border regions of Afghanistan’s Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces.
Tarar claimed the strikes targeted hideouts belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also referred to by the government as Fitna al-Khwarij, resulting in the deaths of 25 militants while destroying large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
He said the operations were launched in response to recent militant attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and the Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) camp in Karachi.
“National security and the protection of our citizens remain our foremost priority. Our efforts for peace should not be mistaken for weakness,” Tarar said, adding that counterterrorism operations would continue under the federal government’s Azm-i-Istehkam strategy.
The operations followed the June 27 attack on a Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) camp in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar area, in which three Rangers personnel were martyred and four others injured.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), militants detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device at the camp’s main gate before attempting to storm the facility while opening fire. Rangers personnel repelled the attack, killing three militants and capturing another in an injured condition.
The military identified the arrested suspect as an Afghan national and launched a sanitisation operation in the area.
The attack was condemned by the country’s civilian and military leadership, with Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir paying tribute to the martyred Rangers personnel and reaffirming Pakistan’s resolve to eliminate terrorism.
