Pakistani security forces have killed 16 suspected militants in a series of intelligence based operations in Balochistan's Mastung district under a campaign named Operation Al-Azm, security sources said on Sunday. The claim could not be independently verified.

According to the sources, the operations were launched in response to a recent wave of attacks in the province and are continuing across several parts of Mastung, including the Khad Kocha and Killi Kundi Umrani areas. Forces said they had destroyed multiple suspected hideouts and ambush positions and recovered weapons, ammunition and material used to assemble improvised explosive devices.

Officials said several suspected militants were wounded in the raids, and that facilitators along with men and women they described as would be suicide bombers had been detained in earlier operations in the same area over the past week. The reported death toll rose incrementally in official accounts, from about 13 on Saturday to 16 by Sunday.

Independent access to conflict areas in Balochistan is heavily restricted, and casualty figures released by security sources are rarely open to verification by journalists or independent observers. Militant groups active in the province routinely dispute official accounts of such operations.

Security officials have linked the militants to the banned Balochistan Liberation Army and allied separatist groups, which have carried out a string of attacks across the province this year.

The operations coincided with a deadly attack on the judiciary in the same district. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying judicial officers on the national highway in Mastung, killing a district and sessions judge and his security guard and seriously wounding an additional sessions judge and another person, according to officials. Balochistan Home Minister Mir Zia Lango said judges in the province regularly face threats, which he tied to its low conviction rate in terrorism cases.

The latest operations follow an earlier campaign, Operation Shaban, which authorities said was launched after an attack on the Mangi Dam police station. On Friday, army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir reiterated the military's pledge to dismantle militant networks in Balochistan.

Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and least developed province, has seen intensified violence through 2026, with separatist groups and security forces offering sharply different accounts of who is being killed and how many.

Published in Balochistan Dispatch, July 26th, 2026