Officials in Pakistan said Monday that insurgents had ambushed a military convoy in a southwestern region and killed two security personnel, including an army major.
The deadly overnight assault occurred in Balor in the turbulent Baluchistan province.
The army’s media wing said troops were on a counterterrorism search mission in the area and trying to block “escape routes” when a group of “terrorists” ambushed them. The ensuing “heavy exchange of fire” killed two army officers and injured another, it added.
No group claimed responsibility for Sunday’s deadly ambush in Baluchistan, where several ethnic Baluch insurgent groups and the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, routinely target security forces.
Sunday’s attack came just hours after heavily armed militants in another part of the province assaulted a security post with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, killing three police officers and a soldier.
Provincial authorities said police and paramilitary forces were jointly operating the post in the Shirani district.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a statement Monday, said that "the entire nation, including me, are saddened over the martyrdom of six security personnel" in the Baluchistan attacks on Sunday.
Militant attacks, including suicide bombings, have dramatically risen in Pakistan in 2023. The violence has reportedly killed around 390 people, including security forces, and injured more than 650 others during the first six months of the current year.
The Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies documented the casualties in a report local media published Monday. It said that most of the deaths, 266, occurred in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The report noted an almost 80% increase in militant attacks nationwide compared to the same period last year. It added that Pakistan witnessed 13 suicide attacks this year, which resulted in 142 deaths, noting that only five suicide bombings had taken place during the first six months of 2022, causing around 80 fatalities.
The Pakistani military said last week that it had “killed or captured nearly 1,200 terrorists” in thousands of nationwide anti-terrorism operations. However, the claims could not be ascertained independently.
Army spokesman Major-General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry shared the details at a news conference, saying that 95 military officers and soldiers were also killed during these operations.
