Pakistani troops kill 54 militants attempting to sneak into Pakistan from Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani security forces overnight killed 54 militants who attempted to cross into the country from Afghanistan, the military said Sunday, marking one of the deadliest such killings in recent years.

The military said in a statement that intelligence reports indicated that the killed militants were ''Khwarij'' — a phrase the government uses for the Pakistani Taliban.

Without directly blaming anyone, the military said that the slain insurgents had been sent by their ''foreign masters'' to carry out high-profile attacks inside Pakistan.

The insurgents were spotted and killed near the former stronghold of Pakistan Taliban near North Waziristan, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along the Afghan border.

''This is the first time during the ongoing operations against terrorists that Pakistani forces killed terrorists in such a high number in a single day,'' Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters. He praised security forces for carrying out a successful operation against militants and foiling possible attacks by them in the country.

''We had this information that the foreign masters of these terrorists are asking them to enter Pakistan as soon as possible" to carry out attacks. He stopped short of saying that India had urged the militants to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have congratulated security forces for eliminating the insurgents.

The military also said in the statement that the infiltration attempt came ''at a time when India is leveling baseless accusations against Pakistan'' following a recent deadly assault on tourists in India-controlled Kashmir.

In recent months, Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence, mostly blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. It's a separate group, but allied with the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan since then.

Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tatar on Sunday told foreign media that New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the tourist attack to distract Pakistan's security forces from their focus on the war on its western borders.

He said that New Delhi, without presenting any evidence, blamed Pakistan for the assault on tourists in Kashmir ''to divert Pakistan's attention from the western region.'' He said that Pakistan had ''undeniable evidence" about India's backing for the Pakistan Taliban and Baloch Liberation Army, which is behind multiple attacks in Balochistan, including one on a train in which more than 30 hostages were killed in March.

Balochistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency with the separatists seeking independence from the central government in Islamabad. Although Pakistani authorities say they have quelled the insurgency, violence has persisted.