QUETTA: Four suspected members of a banned extremist outfit, including a commander, were killed in an intelligence-based operation of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Killi Aghbarg area of the provincial capital, officials said on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the CTD said the operation was planned on the basis of intelligence reports about the presence of members of a banned organisation in Killi Aghbarg, a locality on the outskirts of Quetta city, in the early hours of Wednesday.

CTD personnel subsequently cordoned off the area where the hideout of the wanted extremists was located. Upon learning this, the armed members of the banned organisation opened fire on the security officials in a bid to escape from the area.

However, CTD personnel returned fire and in the heavy exchange of fire between the two sides the four alleged terrorists were killed.

“Four terrorists were killed in the operation, including a key commander of banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) identified as Riaz Thekedar,” the CTD spokesman said. The other three men killed in the operation were Fazal-ur-Rehman, Syed Ramzan and Syed Matiullah.

According to the CTD officials, Riaz was a key TTP commander and was involved in terrorist attacks on security forces and an attack on Civil Hospital Quetta in 2016 in which a large number of lawyers and other people were killed.

He was also involved in target killings, motorcycle bomb attacks in Pishin, bank robberies and kidnapping of the son of Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leader Sardar Mustafa Tareen.

However, two terrorists succeeded in escaping from the area, taking the benefit of darkness, said the CTD spokesman. A large cache of arms and ammunition was seized from the militant hideout, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2021