6 security personnel, 12 militants killed in separate incidents in Pakistan

Six security personnel, including a senior police officer, died while 12 militants were killed in separate terror incidents and security operations in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces in the past two days, officials said on Sunday.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan armed forces, said in the Balochistan province, four militants were killed in two separate incidents.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), eight militants were killed in the Kot Sultan area of Kulachi tehsil in Dera Ismail Khan district when security forces carried out an operation against them, the ISPR said.

The security forces recovered weapons, ammunition and explosives from the slain militants, it added.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Lakki Marwat, a DSP and two cops were killed and a constable was injured by armed miscreants in two separate incidents on Friday night, officials said.

The officials said DSP Gul Muhammad, along with other policemen, had set up a temporary checkpoint on the busy Peshawar-Karachi highway as part of police's security preparations before the festival of Eid-ul-Fitr.

As they were returning from the checkpoint, armed men opened fire on the police van near Manjiwala Chowk, leaving the DSP and Constable Naseem Gul dead, the report said.

In another attack the same night, Constable Sanamat Khan was killed when unknown assailants opened fire on him near his house in the Sra Darga area. The cop was stationed in Miramshah town of North Waziristan district, and he had returned to the village on leave, the Dawn reported.

Moreover, a police official was killed and another injured when a remote-controlled improvised explosive device went off in Mamund tehsil of Bajaur district on Saturday, according to the report.

A head constable of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) was killed by unknown people near the Mian Lal police post in the Tank district on Saturday night.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack on policemen in Lakki Marwat. Taking to social media platform X, Sharif said, Cowardly acts of terrorists cannot shake our resolve.

K P Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur also denounced the militant attacks and directed the police authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice without delay, the report said. Pakistan has been facing a rise in violence in the wake of the Taliban seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

The surge in militant attacks on Pakistani security forces many by the Pakistani Taliban have strained relations between Islamabad and Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.