Pakistan's counter-terrorism department says police have killed 10 militants in a shootout after coming under attack in the eastern city of Lahore.

The department says in a statement that the slain men included a key facilitator of a recent suicide attack in which 13 people were killed in the city.

The statement says officers were on their way to raid a militant hideout based on information gleaned from Anwarul Haq, the alleged facilitator of the Feb. 13 suicide bombing, when a group of militants briefly snatched him before fleeing Saturday.

Officers managed to trace the suspects and killed 10 of them near a river in Lahore, the statement said.

It said all the slain men were apparently Taliban or members of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Taliban.