News / Pakistan

34 pro-Taliban militants killed in Pakistan army operation

Saturday, 27 February 2016 4:13 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 27 February 2016 4:12 PM ]

Pakistani fighter jets fly past during a military parade in Islamabad, March 23, 2015. ©AFP

At least 34 pro-Taliban militants were killed Saturday in the Pakistani army’s latest ground and aerial attack in the country’s northwestern tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistani jets targeted the Maizer area of the Datta Khail region in North Waziristan tribal district that is said to be the last stronghold of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants.

A security official in the area said the attacks destroyed up to four militant hideouts and killed at least 15 militants.

Later in the day, the military said in a statement that its ground forces “surrounded a group of fleeing terrorists in the Mangroti area near the Afghanistan border in the Shawal region of the North Waziristan district and 19 militants were killed during the intense exchange of fire.”

Four security forces including an officer also lost their lives in the operation, the statement added.

The strikes and clashes were confirmed by a senior military official in the city of Peshawar.

"The air strikes have increased in the last few days and we have hit targets today also. We have hit the hideouts many times during the last few days," said the security official, whose name was not mentioned in the report.

This file photo shows a Pakistani army soldier standing guard in Miran Shah Bazaar after driving out militants from Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan along the Afghan border. ©AP

Islamabad has been engaged in a major offensive against militants across the troubled northwestern tribal regions since June 2014.

The operations were launched after a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s peace talks with the pro-Taliban militants.

On February 24, Pakistan's army said it has kicked off the "last phase" of the operation targeting militants in the northwest to purge the area.

In a separate development on Saturday, a Pakistani soldier was killed and two others injured in a roadside bomb attack in Datta Khail.

On December 16, 2014, a group of TTP militants mounted an attack against Peshawar’s Army School, where more than 150 people, mostly children, were killed. The massacre shocked and outraged the country already scarred by nearly a decade of violence.

According to Pakistani officials, more than 3,100 pro-Taliban militants have been killed since the army intensified military operations following the school massacre. The military claims it has now cleared 90 percent of the region.

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