Pakistan's military said on Friday that security forces have killed 74 militants in a series of intelligence-based operations across Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in a statement issued by its media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), and reported by The News International, NewsPulse and Daily Imroz. The military described the dead as India-backed terrorists — an allegation label applied by the ISPR itself, which Awaaz Punjab reports as the military's claim, not as a verified fact.

Source: The News International

Quetta operation running since November 3

According to the ISPR statement, security forces launched a comprehensive intelligence-based area-clearance and sanitisation operation on November 3 in the Kurram area of Quetta district in Balochistan — the place name and district as given in the military's own statement — against militants it named as belonging to Fitna al-Khawarij and Fitna al-Hindustan, the terms the Pakistani military uses for the TTP and for Baloch militant groups it alleges are backed by India. The ISPR said 31 militants were killed in that operation after several clashes at their hideouts, and that weapons, ammunition and explosives were recovered.

Source: NewsPulse

43 killed in Mir Ali and Orakzai in 48 hours

In separate intelligence-based operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over the past 48 hours, the ISPR said troops engaged several militant hideouts and, after intense exchanges of fire, killed 35 militants in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan, and eight in Orakzai — 43 in total. The military said the Mir Ali and Orakzai dead belonged to what it called Indian-sponsored Fitna al-Khawarij, and that clearance and sanitisation operations were continuing in the affected areas.

Source: Daily Imroz

What is verified — and what rests on the military's word

Every figure in this report — the total of 74 and the breakdown by area — comes from the single ISPR statement of Friday, November 13. Pakistani outlets including The News, Geo News reporting carried by other outlets, NewsPulse and Daily Imroz all reported the same statement in the same terms. No independent corroboration of the death tolls had been reported at the time of publication, and the reports carried no response from India to the ISPR's allegation that the groups were India-backed. Readers should treat both the toll and the sponsorship allegation as the Pakistani military's account.

The ISPR said the operations form part of the military's ongoing counterterrorism campaign under its Azm-e-Istehkam strategy, and that the campaign would continue until what it described as foreign-backed terrorism was eliminated from the country. Pakistan has seen a sustained rise in militant violence since the Taliban returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan the worst-affected provinces.

A report by Pakistan's Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), cited in the coverage, found that the two provinces remained the country's principal hotspots of violence during the second quarter of 2026, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the worst-affected region, and that the two provinces together accounted for nearly 96 per cent of all violence-related fatalities recorded nationwide in that quarter. The latest operations also follow repeated clashes between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces along their border since late October, and the November 11 Kohat ambush in which the TTP said it killed 10 Pakistani police officers.

What happens next: the ISPR says sanitisation operations are still under way in the Mir Ali, Orakzai and Quetta areas, so further official statements with updated figures are likely. Any independent reporting from the remote operation areas — and any response from New Delhi to the sponsorship allegation — would be the next check on the military's account.