10 militants killed in Lahore

LAHORE: Pakistani police said on Saturday 10 militants from Jamaatur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, died in a gun battle in Lahore, including a key facilitator of a February blast that left 13 people dead.

The clash came just days after a suicide attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban on an army census team that killed at least six people and wounded 18 in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

Police said that they were taking five militants to recover weapons and explosives on Lahore’s outskirts early on Saturday morning when they were attacked by a group of about 9 militants who freed the captives.

Police called for reinforcements and encircled the area, challenging the militants to surrender.

“A gun battle ensued. When firing stopped 10 militants were found dead by the firing of their fleeing accomplices,” a spokesman for the Counter Terrorism Department in Punjab said in a statement.

Among those killed was a facilitator of a suicide bombing attack in February in Lahore, the statement said. The man had been arrested soon after the blast after he was spotted on security footage walking with the bomber.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar claimed responsibility for February’s attack in Lahore that left 13 dead, as well as an Easter Day bombing in Lahore last year that killed more than 70 people in a public park. Pakistani security forces in February killed around 100 militants after a Sufi shrine bombing in February that left more than 80 dead in southern province of Sindh.