QUETTA -- Pakistani security forces have killed four suspected militants, including a woman, during a raid in the southwestern city of Quetta, officials say.
Police said two more militants blew themselves up during the September 4 operation using suicide vests.
A senior police officer said five police officers were also injured in an exchange of gunfire. One of them later died in the hospital.
The police raid was conducted on the basis of intelligence reports that the suspects were planning a terrorist attack.
It came ahead of next week’s Ashura, the holiest celebration in the Shi’ite religious calendar.
Quetta, the capital of the resource-rich Balochistan Province, has witnessed several terrorist attacks targeting the city's minority Shi’ite community.
Sunni extremist militants consider Shi’a as heretics who deserve death.
Balochistan Province, which borders Afghanistan, has been plagued by sectarian violence, Islamist militant attacks, and a separatist insurgency that has led to thousands of casualties since 2004.
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RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal
Radio Mashaal was launched in January 2010 in order to counter a growing number of Islamic extremist radio stations in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the border with Afghanistan.
