Pakistan troops kill 54 militants crossing Afghanistan border, army says

The military said intelligence reports indicated that the militants were ‘Khwarij’ – a phrase the government uses for the Pakistani Taliban

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Taliban fighters patrol the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021. Photo: dpa

Published: 11:51pm, 27 Apr 2025Updated: 10:47am, 28 Apr 2025

Pakistani security forces overnight killed 54 militants who attempted to cross into the country from Afghanistan, the military said on Sunday, marking one of the deadliest such killings in recent years.

The military said in a statement that intelligence reports indicated that the killed militants were “Khwarij” – a phrase the government uses for the Pakistani Taliban.

Without directly blaming anyone, the military said that the slain insurgents had been sent by their “foreign masters” to carry out high-profile attacks inside Pakistan.

The insurgents were spotted and killed near the former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban near North Waziristan, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along the Afghan border.

“This is the first time during the ongoing operations against terrorists that Pakistani forces killed terrorists in such a high number in a single day,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters. He praised security forces for carrying out a successful operation against militants and foiling possible attacks by them in the country.

“We had this information that the foreign masters of these terrorists are asking them to enter Pakistan as soon as possible” to carry out attacks. He stopped short of saying that India had urged the militants to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Afghan migrants walk through a tent camp, amid the deportation of 800,000 Afghan refugees from neighbouring Pakistan, in Spin Boldak District, Kandahar, Afghanistan, on April 19. Photo: EPA-EFE

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