Operation Zarb-e-Azb

Operation Zarb-e-Azb
	Part of the Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; and the Global War on Terrorism
	; – North Waziristan; – FATA; – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa;
Date	15 June 2014 – 22 February 2017
Location	Pakistan
Status	Pakistani victory Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad continues; Most areas under Pakistani control; Pockets of resistance remain in North Waziristan and the Khyber agencies; Main force of Pakistani Taliban take refuge in Afghanistan;
Belligerents
Pakistan Pakistan Army; Pakistan Air Force; Pakistan Navy; Special Forces ISI Covert Action Division; SSW; Pakistan Marines; Elite Police; ; Civil Armed Forces Pakistan Frontier Corps; ;	Insurgent groups Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan; Lashkar-e-Jhangvi; East Turkestan Islamic Movement; al-Qaeda; Haqqani network; Cross-border attacking militants; Formerly: Lashkar-e-Islam (Rejoined TTP on 12 March 2015); Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (Rejoined TTP on 12 March 2015); Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (Until Mid 2015); Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Wilayat Khorasan (from 2015) Jundallah; Tehreek-e-Khilafat; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; ;
Commanders and leaders
Pakistan; Nawaz Sharif; (Prime Minister); Zubair Mahmood Hayat; (Chairman Joint Chief of Staff); Raheel Shareef; (Chief of Army Staff); Commanders of Operation Zarb-e-Azb; Lieutenant-General Hidayat-ur-Rehman; Major-General Zafar Khan	Insurgent groups; Maulana Fazlullah †; Sheikh Khalid Haqqani; Sheharyar Mehsud; Adnan Rashid; Usman Ghazi †; Adnan el-Shukrijumah † ISIL; Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi † ; (Leader of ISIL); Abu Alaa Afri † ; (Deputy Leader of ISIL); Hafiz Saeed Khan † (ISIL Emir of Afghanistan and Pakistan); Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost (2014–2015); Usman Ghazi †
Strength
Pakistan; 20,000–30,000	Insurgent groups; Several thousand ISIL; 500–1,000
Casualties and losses
Pakistan; 490 killed; 1,914 injured	Insurgent groups; 3,500 killed ISIL; 46+ killed
	929,859 internally displaced from North Waziristan (as of 14 July 2014); 2 civilians killed, 1 injured; 140 civilians (mostly children) killed in TTP retaliation

Operation Zarb-e-Azb (Pashto/Urdu: آپریشن ضربِ عضب ALA-LC: Āpres̱ẖan Ẓarb-i ʿAẓb; lit. 'Single Strike') was a joint military offensive conducted by the Pakistan Armed Forces against various militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Lashkar-e-Islam. The operation was launched on 15 June 2014 in North Waziristan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as a renewed effort against militancy in the wake of the 8 June attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, for which the TTP and the IMU claimed responsibility. As of 14 July 2014, the operation internally displaced about 929,859 people belonging to 80,302 families from North Waziristan.

Part of the war in North-West Pakistan, up to 30,000 Pakistani soldiers were involved in Zarb-e-Azb, described as a "comprehensive operation" to flush out all foreign and local militants hiding in North Waziristan. The operation has received widespread support from the Pakistani political, defence and civilian sectors. As a consequence, the overall security situation improved and terrorist attacks in Pakistan dropped to a six-year low since 2008. Zarb-e-Azb was followed by Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad which began in February 2017, following a resurgence in terrorist incidents.