Two soldiers killed during gunbattle with militants in southwestern Pakistan — army
Two soldiers killed during gunbattle with militants in southwestern Pakistan — army/node/2399896/pakistan
Two soldiers killed during gunbattle with militants in southwestern Pakistan — army
A Pakistani army soldier stands guard along with border fence at the Pak-Afghan border near the Punjpai area of Quetta in Balochistan on May 8, 2018. (AFP/File)
ISLAMABAD: Two soldiers and two militants were killed during an exchange of fire between the two sides in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, the army’s media wing said on Sunday.
Security forces and militants traded fire in Balochistan’s Awaran district, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement, adding that two militants were killed during the exchange while two others were injured.
“However, during intense exchange of fire, Naib Subedar Asif Irfan (age 37 years, resident of District Okara) and Sepoy Irfan Ali (age 22 years, resident of District Sargodha) having fought gallantly, embraced Shahadat [martyrdom],” the army’s media wing said.
The ISPR said security forces carried out a sanitization process of the area to hunt for other militants in the area.
“Security Forces are determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism and such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further strengthen our resolve,” it said.
Balochistan shares a porous border with Iran and Afghanistan and has long been a battleground for a low-level insurgency. Baloch nationalists argue they are fighting against the unfair extraction of the province’s resources by the federal government, an accusation Islamabad denies.
A number of armed factions operating in the province where Pakistan and China are jointly undertaking infrastructure development and regional connectivity projects have stepped up attacks in Balochistan, after a fragile truce between the state and the Pakistani Taliban broke down last year.
Balochistan also experienced a major suicide attack in September that targeted a religious congregation in Mastung, killing nearly 60 people.
Fast bowler Afridi back in Pakistan squad for white-ball series against West Indies in US
Fast bowler Haris Rauf, who suffered a hamstring injury, has recovered and was named in the T20 squad
Pakistan’s pace attack was further strengthened Friday with the return of Hasan Ali for both T20s, ODIs
Updated 6 sec ago
AP
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recalled fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi for the white-ball cricket series against West Indies, starting at Broward County Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida.
The three Twenty20 matches in the US — on July 31, Aug. 2 and 3 — will be followed by three ODI games in Trinidad and Tobago.
Afridi, who is also in the ODI squad, was surprisingly excluded from Pakistan’s last two T20 series against Bangladesh despite leading Lahore Qalandars to its third Pakistan Super League title in the last four years with a rich haul of 19 wickets this year.
In Afridi’s absence, Pakistan routed Bangladesh 3-0 at home but lost 2-1 to Bangladesh at Dhaka in a series which ended Thursday.
Fast bowler Haris Rauf, who was forced to miss the series against Bangladesh because of a hamstring injury he sustained during Major League Cricket (MLC) in the US, has recovered and was named in the T20 squad.
Pakistan’s pace attack was further strengthened Friday with the return of Hasan Ali for both T20s and ODIs against West Indies.
The selectors dropped pace bowlers Abbas Afridi and Salman Mirza, who both participated in the T20 series in Bangladesh, and retained all-rounders Hussain Talat and Mohammad Nawaz.
Middle-order batter Hasan Nawaz is the only uncapped player named in the ODI squad. Nawaz scored Pakistan’s fastest-ever T20 century against New Zealand in March this year.
Salman Ali Agha will continue to lead the T20 side while wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan was named skipper for the ODI series.
Twenty20 squad: Salman Ali Agha (captain), Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufiyan Muqeem.
ODI squad: Mohammad Rizwan (captain), Salman Ali Agha, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufiyan Muqeem.
KARACHI: Police have arrested two suspects for allegedly poisoning a local TikTok star to death in Pakistan’s southern Ghotki district, officials said on Saturday.
Sumeera Rajput, who had over 58,000 followers and one million likes on TikTok, was found dead at her residence in the Bago Wah area on Friday afternoon, according to Ghotki Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Muhammad Anwar Khetran.
Police arrested two suspects, Babu Rajput and Muhammad Imran, for poisoning the content creator and lodged a case against them on the complaint of the deceased’s sister.
“A post-mortem of Sameera Rajput has been conducted, which has revealed that she died because of poisoning,” Khetran said in a statement. “Further investigation is underway with the arrested suspects.”
This is the third death involving woman tiktokers in Pakistan in less than two months.
On July 11, a father shot dead his daughter in Rawalpindi after she refused to delete her account on TikTok.
In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.
On June 2, Sana Yousaf, a 17-year-old content creator, was shot dead at her Islamabad home by another social media influencer, Umar Hayat, 22, after she rejected his repeated advances, according to Islamabad police chief Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi.
Yousuf, originally from the scenic northern region of Chitral, was known for promoting traditional Chitrali music and dress through her videos. She also advocated for girls’ education.
Hours before her murder, she had posted a photo celebrating her birthday with friends.
Women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.
However, only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.
Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what they call “immoral behavior.”
In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her “honor.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said on Friday that his country was hopeful of finalizing a trade deal with the United States “in days.”
Pakistan and the United States (US) have been engaged in talks after Washington announced a 29 percent “reciprocal tariff” on Pakistani exports in April. Islamabad said the move, paused in June for a 90-day period, may undercut its fragile, export-led recovery.
The US is Pakistan’s top export destination, with shipments totaling $5.44 billion in fiscal year 2023-2024, according to official data. From July 2024 to February 2025, exports rose 10 percent from a year earlier.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, the Pakistani deputy premier said both sides have recently held discussions relating to textiles, digital trade and agriculture.
“Pakistan seeks better market access in the US. On our part, we are working toward granting greater market access to the US products in the large Pakistani markets,” he said.
“We hope to conclude a mutually beneficial trade agreement at the earliest, hopefully in days not in weeks.”
Under US President Donald Trump, Washington has attempted to renegotiate trade agreements with many countries that he threatened with tariffs over what he calls unfair trade relations. Many economists dispute Trump’s characterization.
Dar also met Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday.
“Met with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister @MIshaqDar50 today to discuss expanding bilateral trade and enhancing collaboration in the critical minerals sector,” Rubio said on X.
“I also thanked him for Pakistan’s partnership in countering terrorism and preserving regional stability.”
The Pakistani foreign ministry also said Dar “appreciated the pivotal role” by Trump and Rubio “in de-escalating tensions between Pakistan and India by facilitating a ceasefire.” The State Department statement did not mention India.
Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire he announced on social media on May 10 after Washington held talks with both sides. India disputes Trump’s claims that the ceasefire resulted from his intervention and trade threats.
An April 22 militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 men and sparked heavy fighting between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry. India struck Pakistan on May 7 and the two nations exchanged hostilities, killing dozens across three days. The ceasefire was declared on May 10.
New Delhi blamed the April attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility and called for a neutral investigation. Washington condemned the attack but did not blame Islamabad.
ISLAMABAD: Mobile phones, data cables and memory cards sprawl across the editing table in Athar Abbas’s modest Islamabad apartment.
It’s an organized chaos the 38-year-old filmmaker fully embraces — a far cry from the mental turmoil that once engulfed him.
Abbas, a former commercial producer, now documents the lives of ordinary Pakistanis in short, emotionally charged videos he publishes on social media. His mini-documentaries — raw, personal and deliberately unpolished — have attracted tens of thousands of followers across platforms, racking up over a million views in the past year.
But Abbas’s foray into digital storytelling wasn’t born of ambition. It was a survival tactic.
He began filming after quitting his job at a construction company, where a senior colleague dismissed his work as “pathetic.”
The insult gnawed at his confidence and spiraled into a depressive episode. Eventually, Abbas turned to the one outlet that had always brought him calm — the camera.
“I picked up my camera and started making stories,” Abbas told Arab News. “And unintentionally, I realized that maybe for an artist, there’s no therapy greater than his art.”
Pakistani filmmaker and content creator Athar Abbas speaks during an interview with Arab News in Islamabad on July 18, 2025. (AN Photo)
Pakistan, a country of over 240 million people, faces a chronic shortage of mental health services.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 24 million people in Pakistan are in need of psychiatric support. Yet the country has only around 500 trained psychologists and 400 psychiatrists, roughly one mental health professional for every 260,000 people.
The stigma around mental illness remains deeply entrenched, especially for men. Talking about emotional vulnerability is often seen as weakness, a perception Abbas says is reinforced in professional environments.
“He feels that his manly personality will be affected,” he said, referring to why many Pakistani men hesitated to express emotions, especially those that communicated perceived weakness.
“So he doesn’t even share that he has a problem with something.”
In Pakistan’s corporate sector, long working hours, harsh managerial practices and lack of mental health policies have contributed to high stress levels.
A 2024 review by the Pakistan Society of Human Resource Management found that most companies lacked formal emotional wellness programs.
Creative professionals, Abbas said, often bore the brunt of toxic leadership.
“If you talk to anyone in the creative field, they will tell you they are distressed because of senior management’s behavior,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it greatly affects mental health.”
A separate 2025 study in the Pakistan Social Sciences Review noted that while some younger professionals are more aware of mental health issues, institutional support remains weak, leaving them vulnerable to burnout and depression.
‘UNTOLD PAKISTAN’
For Abbas, the path to stability came through storytelling.
He launched a series titled Untold Pakistan, filming everything from a street vendor’s hustle to a single mother’s struggle for dignity. In one video, a man named Kamran Ali cycles from Germany to Layyah, Punjab, only to learn of his mother’s death upon arrival.
“Storytelling became a way to survive,” Abbas said.
This combination of screenshots, taken on July 26, 2025, shows stills from short videos by Pakistani filmmaker and content creator Athar Abbas. (Courtesy: Instagram/@athar.abbass_)
His films resist sensationalism. There are no stunts or celebrity cameos. Instead, they dwell in moments often overlooked: fatigue, memory, longing, resilience. The comment sections on his pages are peppered with viewers opening up about their own traumas, some for the first time.
Abbas recalls a message from a young man in Lahore who said one of the videos gave him the courage to speak to his father about something he’d been avoiding for a long time.
“That one message made all the late nights worth it,” Abbas said.
After 15 years of directing ads, music videos and corporate content, Abbas has no interest in going back. His priorities have shifted.
“I didn’t set out to become an influencer,” he said. “I just needed to breathe.”
KARACHI: Air Karachi, Pakistan’s new private airline in the making, has engaged the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) for the supply of airliners to start its flight operations, the group chairman Hanif Gohar told Arab News on Friday.
Spearheaded by a group of leading businessmen from Pakistan’s southern port city, the airline is also negotiating with global aerospace giants like Boeing and Airbus for the acquisition of at least three passenger aircraft. It was launched in November 2024 by 100 stakeholders with Rs5 billion ($17.6 million) in seed money.
“We are talking with COMAC regarding the 919, as well as with Boeing and Airbus, to acquire the aircraft,” Gohar said, referring to a narrow-body passenger jet developed by China.
Business leaders in the South Asian nation have stepped up to fill the gap as the state-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has become a liability for the cash-strapped government, which is now making a second attempt to privatize the national carrier.
“We will start our flight operations as soon as we reach an agreement with any of the suppliers, whoever comes first,” Gohar said when asked about the timeline to start operations.
Gohar, a business tycoon himself, expects a deal within the next month.
He said Air Karachi would initially fly three aircraft domestically, and the fleet would later be expanded with four more planes to start international flights within a year.
The idea to launch a business-backed airline was conceived to develop an entity that can operate with efficiency and financial autonomy amid growing challenges faced by PIA.
Last month, Air Karachi received its Regular Public Transport (RPT) license from Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority.
The airline has been modeled after the success of Air Sial, another private carrier launched by industrialists in Sialkot, the manufacturing hub of Pakistan’s exportable sports and surgical goods.
