Three planes are damaged as militants attack the Pakistan Air Force training station in Punjab province

A day after two separate terror assaults claimed the lives of fifteen troops, heavily armed terrorists assaulted a Pakistan Air Force training facility in Punjab province early on Saturday, destroying three grounded aircraft, according to the army.

According to a statement released by the Pakistan Army, terrorists attempted to assault the Pakistan Air Force’s Mianwali Training Air Base, but troops stopped them by capturing three of the assailants and killing three more.

However, the statement also said that a gasoline bowser and three previously grounded aircraft sustained considerable damage during the strike.

As of yet, no organization has taken ownership of the assault.

The last three terrorists were “isolated/cornered by the troops’ prompt and effective response,” according to the army, while the first three were “neutralized while entering the base.”

To fully clean the region, a thorough combined clearing and combing operation is nearing its conclusion, according to the statement.

The army said, “The Pakistan Armed Forces are steadfast in our commitment to eradicate the threat of terrorism from our nation at all costs.”

The assault occurs only hours after several terrorist attacks in the unrest-plagued districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan claimed the lives of at least fifteen troops.

When terrorists attacked two trucks transporting security personnel from Pasni to the Ormara region of Gwadar district in the unrest-plagued south-western province of Balochistan, on Friday, fourteen Pakistani soldiers lost their lives.

The military has suffered more casualties on Friday than any other day this year in the Balochistan region, where militants and separatists have intensified their assaults after a ceasefire agreement between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistani government expired in November 2022.

In the Dera Ismail Khan area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a series of bomb explosions targeted convoys of police and security personnel hours before the Gwadar assault left six people—including a soldier—dead and twenty-four injured.

Terrorists and separatists have been attacking Pakistani security personnel all year long, mostly in the volatile region of Balochistan. Last Sunday, two troops lost their lives in the Awaran district’s Khoro sector.

Twelve troops lost their lives in separate military operations in Balochistan’s Zhob and Sui regions in July.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, there has been an increase in violence in Pakistan.

Pakistan had 99 assaults in August, the most in a single month since November 2014, according to a September study from the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS). In August, there were more terrorist assaults than in any other month in almost nine years.

The most assaults in recent months have occurred in the Gwadar area. In August, separatists from the banned Baloch Liberation Army ambushed a convoy of twenty-three Chinese engineers in the port town of Gwadar.

In a study published in October, the think tank Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) said that the security forces had at least 386 individuals leave in the first nine months of 2023—an eight-year high.

The two most violent states during this time were Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which accounted for about 94% of all deaths and 89% of assaults (including acts of terrorism and security force operations).