Eleven Militants Killed in Separate Mashkel and South Waziristan Operations

Pakistani security forces killed eleven militants in two unconnected operations on October 3 — six in Balochistan's Mashkel area and five in South Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — in the latest round of a counter-militancy campaign that has run almost continuously through 2026.

The Mashkel operation

In the Gorander area of Mashkel, Balochistan, a group the military labels Fitna al-Hindustan — its term for Baloch separatist militants it alleges receive Indian backing — opened fire on a security check post and then attempted to flee the area. Security forces responded and killed all six militants in the exchange. A sanitisation operation to clear the surrounding area followed, and the military said weapons and ammunition were recovered from the site.

The South Waziristan operation

Separately, forces carried out an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in South Waziristan targeting a group the ISPR describes as Fitna al-Khawarij, the label it applies to networks it associates with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Five militants were killed, their hideout was destroyed, and a large quantity of weapons and ammunition was recovered.

Part of a longer-running pattern

Both operations sit inside the same broad campaigns that have defined the state's counter-militancy messaging through the year. Mashkel's operation falls under Operation Radd-ul-Fitna 3, the same framework behind the Kachhi operation we covered on October 1, where quadcopters were used to target six Fitna al-Hindustan militants in Sanni. The South Waziristan operation falls under the Azm-e-Istehkam vision the military has applied to Fitna al-Khawarij operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's tribal districts throughout 2026.

The toll adds to a year in which ISPR statements have reported militant deaths in Balochistan and KP on a near-weekly basis, including the 71 killed in a 96-hour operation reported in September and the hostage-rescue operation covered in our report from Kalat.

Why it matters

The two operations illustrate how distinctly the state frames and fights its two active internal conflicts: a TTP-linked insurgency concentrated in KP's tribal districts, met with intelligence-based raids like South Waziristan's, and a Baloch separatist movement in the south and west that the state's own messaging continues to describe as foreign-backed. Both campaigns run in parallel with the separate, higher-intensity conflict along the Afghan border, and neither shows signs of winding down as 2026 enters its final quarter.

Build Better Pakistan's Security Desk tracks counter-militancy operations in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the state reports them.