Chronology of military operations

E-Paper | April 25, 2026

ISLAMABAD: Though the country has been in the grip of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks in the US, the government of Pakistan decided to use the full force of state against militants in 2007 after the Lal Masjid Operation in Islamabad.

The following are major military operations carried out by armed forces against local and foreign militants in the troubled tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent past:

Operation Rah-i-Haq-I in Swat valley and Shangla district (2007)

Operation Rah-i-Haq-II in Swat valley and Shangla (2008)

Operation Sirat-i-Mustaqeem in Khyber Agency (2008)

Operation Sherdil jointly launched with Frontier Corps in Bajaur Agency (2008)

Operation Rah-i-Haq-III in Swat valley and Shangla (2009)

Operation Black Thunderstorm in Buner, Lower Dir and Shangla district (2009)

Operation Brekhna in Mohmand Agency (2009)

Operation Rah-i-Rast, commonly known as Swat Operation, (2009)

Operation Rah-i-Nijat in South Waziristan (2009)

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2014

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Kashif Ali Abbasi is an Islamabad-based reporter for Dawn with 17 years of experience in journalism. He covers sports, the education sector, and civic issues. He can be found on X at @AbbasiKashif833.

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khanm

Jun 16, 2014 10:07am

Frankly speaking i am not in favor of full blown military operation. in my opinion we should have use our intelligent agencies to get the useful information and carried surgical strikes...what is going to be the out of this, it remains to be seen. Folks..If I had undertaken the practical direction of military operations, and anything went amiss, I feared that my conscience would torture me, as guilty of the fall of my country, as I had not been familiar with military tactics.

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Important

Jun 16, 2014 10:19am

There is no use of any operation if Afghan border is not sealed off for good.

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Muhammad Salman Nazar

Jun 16, 2014 01:00pm

This is not 'Heavy Artillery' as captioned in the pic, Heavy artillery starts at 155mm calibre!

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Nadeem Khan

Jun 16, 2014 03:28pm

Stop using different heroic names and for once lets call it operation clean up ,,, and clean this mess!!!!!

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Goga Nalaik

Jun 16, 2014 06:06pm

Regarding operation names, I would suggest to use commonly known (and understood by all) English names. This Muslim terminology was introduced Under Zia, the dictator!

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Pragmatist

Jun 16, 2014 08:48pm

No operation against terrorists will succeed unless their nests, protectors and leaders in Punjab and Sindh are eliminated. So far the Army and Government have not treated the root cause of the disease, just tried to suppress its outward symptoms. The above chronology clearly shows that the the terrorist are simply disturbed and they take refuge in adjoining areas and return at their convenience. Pakistan also needs to address the sectarianism and mistreatment of minorities. The Islamic State and its laws clearly discriminate against the non-Muslims and encourage the mischief mongers to harm these helpless citizens. With these attributes no society can live in peace.

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sky

Jun 16, 2014 09:22pm

its wrong there was only one operation in swat....i am from swat

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