PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s military said Friday that it has killed 917 militants, including 126 Afghan nationals, in more than 10,000 counterterrorism operations across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this year, as part of an intensified campaign to eliminate terrorist networks in the country’s northwest.
Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), told reporters at Peshawar Corps Headquarters that the operations targeted militant hideouts and cross-border infiltration attempts from Afghanistan.
“Pakistan’s security forces, with the support of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have broken the backbone of terrorism in the region,” Chaudhry said. “Our fight will continue until complete peace and stability are restored.”
According to the army’s figures, 516 people, including security personnel and civilians, were martyred in these operations. The dead included 311 soldiers, 73 police officers, and 132 civilians.
Chaudhry said security forces carried out 14,535 operations in 2024, killing 769 militants — among them 58 Afghans — while 577 personnel from the army, police, and Frontier Corps lost their lives.
He said security forces also killed 135 militants attempting to infiltrate from Afghanistan and confirmed that all 30 suicide bombers involved in attacks over the past two years were Afghan citizens.
“These figures clearly expose Afghanistan’s role as India’s terrorist launching pad against Pakistan,” Chaudhry said.
The ISPR chief claimed that terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is being sustained by a deliberate political and criminal nexus. “Governance and public welfare in the province were intentionally weakened, giving space to terrorists and their facilitators,” he said.
Chaudhry identified five key reasons why terrorism persists in Pakistan: failure to implement the National Action Plan, politicization of counterterrorism efforts, India’s use of Afghanistan as a proxy base, the availability of weapons and safe havens for militants inside Afghanistan, and the alliance between terrorists and local criminal networks.
He warned that this nexus continues to obstruct lasting peace. “Terrorists and criminal elements enjoy political and local backing — this remains a major obstacle to achieving stability,” he said.
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The military’s latest data underscores the ongoing security challenges in Pakistan’s northwestern border region, which has witnessed a resurgence of militant violence in recent years despite repeated counterterrorism operations.
