QUETTA, Pakistan: Pakistan’s military says security forces have raided militant hideouts in the country’s southwest, triggering shootouts that left two of the insurgents dead.

In a statement, the military says troops also seized a cache of guns, grenades, rockets, land-mines, explosives and communications equipment in Friday’s operations.

It provided no further details, but militants and ethnic separatists who have been waging a low-level insurgency in the Baluchistan province often target security forces there.

Although Pakistan’s government claims it has quelled the Baluch separatists’ insurgency, violence has persisted in the province.