LAHORE - Punjab’s Counterterrorism Department officials shot and killed two members of the Islamic State terror group during a successful operation in district Faisalabad.

A CTD spokesman said that both the terrorists were found shot dead after the gunfire that lasted for an hour. They were identified by police as Adeel Hafeez and Usman Haroon.

The bullet riddled bodies were moved to the morgue.

An official of the Counterterrorism Department told reporters in Lahore that both the terrorists were linked to the terror group ISIS or Daesh and they were involved in several high-profile attacks and abductions.

“It was an intelligence based operation,” the official said. He said that the intelligence operatives and counter terror officials jointly raided a rented house in Faisalabad as they received secret information about presence of the terrorists in the residential locality. The raid was conducted before dawn on Tuesday, he added.

Security officials also seized two suicide jackets, one pistol, two hand grenades, and bullets from the house.  

According to the official, a local resident alerted the law-enforcement agencies after observing suspicious activities in the neighbourhood.

“This network of terrorists was also involved in the killing of two officials of an intelligence agency in Multan,” the official said.

The same group was involved in the abduction of American development expert Warren Weinstein, former PM Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider, son-in-law of Gen (Retd) Tariq Majeed, and Brig Tahir. They had also killed two policemen in Faisalabad in an attempt to kidnap a senior officer, the official said.

According to the CTD spokesman, both the terrorists had played a key role in the kidnapping of former PM Gilani’s son Ali Haider in 2013.

Ali Haider was rescued in Afghanistan in 2016 while Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped from Lahore, was killed mistakenly in American drone strike on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2015.