New Delhi: The Pakistan Army reported that a group of armed terrorists raided a Pakistan Air Force training base in Punjab on Saturday morning, causing damage to three aircraft that were not in use, as well as a fuel tanker. This came after two separate attacks on Friday that killed 15 soldiers in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The army said they killed three of the terrorists and trapped the other three inside the Mianwali Training Air Base. They also said they were conducting a thorough operation to secure the area. They vowed to eradicate terrorism from the country at any cost. The attackers did not identify themselves.


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The previous day, 14 soldiers died when their vehicles were ambushed by militants on the way from Pasni to Ormara in the volatile Balochistan province. This was the worst loss for the military in Balochistan this year, where violence has escalated since the end of a truce between the government and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in November 2022.


Another attack in Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa killed six people, including a soldier, and injured 24 others. The targets were police and security forces convoys.


Pakistan has seen a surge in attacks by terrorists and separatists, especially in Balochistan, where two soldiers were killed last Sunday in Awaran. In July, 12 soldiers lost their lives in Zhob and Sui. The situation worsened after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021.


A report by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) in September said that Pakistan faced 99 attacks in August, the most in a month since November 2014. It was also the highest monthly count of attacks in almost a decade.


The Gwadar district was the most affected, where the banned Baloch Liberation Army attacked a group of 23 Chinese engineers in August. The Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), a think tank, said in October that 386 security personnel died in the first nine months of 2023, the highest in eight years.


Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounted for nearly 94 per cent of the deaths and 89 per cent of the attacks, including terrorism and security operations, during this period.