ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani police raided Wednesday a suspected hideout of hostage-takers in the country's south, triggering a firefight that killed six officers, officials said. Earlier in the day, a military operation against militants in northwestern Pakistan killed two soldiers.
The raid in southern Sindh province was part of an ongoing operation against criminal gangs there and in eastern Punjab province, police said. Security forces backed by troops have arrested dozens of suspects in recent weeks.
Wednesday's raid targeted a criminal group that earlier this week abducted the son of a wealthy rice mill owner in the district of Jacobabad. Along with the six officers killed, two were wounded. The hostage, identified as Furqan Soomro, was not rescued and his fate was not immediately known.
Police were still pursuing the hostage-takers, according to police officer Munir Sheikh.
Hours earlier, a firefight in Tirah, a former militant stronghold in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, left two soldiers and two militants dead.
On Tuesday, the military announced it had expanded operations against militants across the country, especially in the northwest. The area is a former tribal region and had been a base for the Pakistani Taliban, w militant group that has waged an insurgency against the government in Islamabad for the past 15 years.
The Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, are separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The takeover emboldened the TTP, which has stepped up attacks on Pakistani forces in recent months.
