Pakistani army air raids kill 17 pro-Taliban militants
Pakistani fighter jets have bombed militant positions in the country’s rugged northwestern tribal region close to the border with Afghanistan, killing at least 17 pro-Taliban militants.
Pakistani security sources said the airstrikes were carried out in the militant-infested Shawal district of the North Waziristan tribal region on Friday.
A senior local security official said that Pakistani military aircraft destroyed militant hideouts during the aerial attacks in the thick mountainous forests in the Wareka Mandi area, located 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of the regional capital, Miranshah.
"The air force jets pounded the areas close to the Afghan border in thick forests and killed at least 17 militants. Three compounds and five vehicles were also destroyed in the action," a senior security official in Miranshah said.
The strikes came two days after the massacre of nearly 50 Ismaili Shia Muslims in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. The attack was claimed by the pro-Taliban Jundullah terrorists, which had previously allied itself to the ISIL Takfiri group.
Wednesday's attack on the Pakistani Ismailis was the second-deadliest in the country so far this year after 62 other Shias were killed in a bombing in late January.
The Pakistani army started an operation against militant hideouts in North Waziristan last June, after a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s faltering peace talks with the pro-Taliban militants.
The military says it has killed more than 1,200 militants since launching the June 15, 2014 operation.
The tribal regions on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan have been a hideout for Takfiri militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the pro-Taliban militants, during the past years. The militants use the mountainous border area to launch attacks in both countries.
Pakistan intensified its anti-terror campaign following a December 16, 2014 attack on an army-run school in the city of Peshawar, which claimed the lives of about 150 people.
Violence has been increasing in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt following the 2001 US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.
JR/GHN/HMV
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