Pakistan remains a “safe haven” for a host of regional terror groups, including the Afghan Taliban and its integral subgroup, the Al Qaeda linked Haqqani Network, according the the State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism 2019.

Pakistani police said Tuesday their counter-terrorism forces, acting on intelligence, raided a suspected militant hideout in the country’s northwest, triggering an intense shootout in which four suspects were killed.

U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, has met with leaders of the Taliban in Qatar to review the implementation of a peace deal with the Islamist insurgency aimed at ending nearly two decades of Afghan conflict.

A major intelligence-based operation is ongoing against militants hiding near Pakistan’s border with Iran in the southwestern Balochistan province, Pakistani intelligence officials and local witnesses said, in the latest attempt to combat violence on the 900-km shared frontier.

On May 19, 2020, six Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers were killed when unidentified militants targeted their vehicle using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the Mach District of Balochistan on May 19, 2020. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Thousands of Pakistanis, including fighters from Pakistani proxies, continue to support the Taliban’s jihad against the Afghan government, according to a new report by a United Nations monitoring team. The report highlighted Pakistan’s double game of claiming to fight terrorism while backing terror groups that further its foreign policy goals.

Two suspected militants riding on a motorcycle opened fire on two policemen manning a roadside checkpoint on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, killing both of them before fleeing the scene, the police said Wednesday.

A roadside bombing in a remote area in southwestern Pakistan, close to the border with Iran, struck a patrol vehicle on Friday, killing six soldiers, including an army major, the military said.

Separate attacks in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province killed seven troops, officials said Tuesday. An eight soldier was killed in a roadside bombing in the country’s northwest.

The list has been cut in half in the past 18 months without public explanation Pakistan has removed thousands of names from its terrorist watch list in what the country says is an effort to meet its obligations ahead of a new round of assessments by a global anti-money-laundering watchdog.