KARACHI: Security forces on Thursday claimed to have killed two more ‘high-profile’ militants during an operation in the border area with Afghanistan.

They identified the decea­sed militants as Wajihullah alias Ahrar and Hikmat alias Qari Zubair and said both were associated with Jamaat-ul-Ahrar — a breakaway faction of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan — which claimed responsibility for several recent terrorist attacks in the country.

“The two high-profile terrorists were killed in Pak­istan Army’s targeted artillery shelling on Pak-Afghan border the other day,” said a security source.

“Wajihullah was sponsored by ‘hostile intelligence agency’ for terrorist activities in Pakistan. He was mastermind of the recent suicide attack in Lahore and earlier terrorist incidents in Punjab,” he added.

The source said Hikmat was actually in-charge of a terrorist transit camp in Afghanistan and coordinated with the hostile intelligence agency for terrorism in Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2017