Pakistan military kills 31 militants, as presence increases

Pakistan's military said it had killed 31 local Taliban militants in two separate operations near the border with Afghanistan, where the group's presence has increased.

It comes after 12 soldiers were killed in an ambush in a neighbouring district on Saturday, an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).

The military said in a statement published late Monday that it had killed 31 "Khwarij" over the weekend, a recent term adopted by authorities to describe TTP fighters.

It accused archfoe India, with which Pakistan fought a four-day skirmish in May, of backing the militants.

The nuclear armed neighbours have long accused each other of backing militant forces to destabilise one another.

"Sanitization operations are being conducted to eliminate any other Indian sponsored" militants in the area, said the statement published late Monday.

Militancy has surged in the border regions with Afghanistan since the return to power of the Afghan Taliban in Kabul in 2021.

Security officials have told AFP that the presence of TTP militants has increased over the past two months.

The TTP, which is waging a campaign against security forces, is a separate group from the Afghan Taliban, but they are closely linked.

Islamabad accuses neighbouring Afghanistan of failing to expel militants using Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, which authorities in Kabul deny.

More than 460 people, mostly members of the security forces, have been killed this year in attacks carried out by armed groups fighting the state, both in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southern province of Balochistan, according to an AFP tally.

Last year was Pakistan's deadliest in nearly a decade, with more than 1,600 killed, nearly half of them soldiers and police officers, according to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies.