(MENAFN- Arab Times) Pakistan's military says its warplanes have pounded militant hideouts in a troubled tribal region along the Afghan border, killing at least 17 suspected militants. In a statement released Friday, the military says the airstrikes were carried out the night before in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan.
The military says there were some foreigners among the 15 killed but provided no further details on their nationalities or identities. Reporters are barred from Pakistan's tribal regions and it is impossible to independently verify information from there. North Waziristan is one of seven tribal regions where local and foreign militants have found safe havens for years. They use the hideouts in the mountainous border area to launch attacks on both sides of the border.
The strikes came two days after the massacre of 45 minority Shiite Ismaili Muslims in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi claimed by the Islamic State group (IS) and the Taleban's Jundullah faction which has previously reportedly allied itself to IS. The air force jets targeted militants' hideouts on the edge of the Afghan border in the thick mountainous forests in the Wareka Mandi area of Shawal district in North Waziristan tribal region, 65 kms (40 miles) west of its 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 security official in Miranshah told AFP. The official said that the killed militants included Uzbek and Afghan nationals and members of the Tehreek-i-Taleban Pakistan (TTP). Two local residents confirmed the attack to AFP.
Senior military officials based in Peshawar said they were not in a position to confirm the exact death toll but confirmed that the strikes happened in the area. The region is remote and offlimits to journalists, making it difficult to verify the number and identity of those killed. Wednesday's attack on Pakistani minority Shiite Ismaili Muslims was the second-deadliest in Pakistan this year after 62 Shiite Muslims were killed in a suicide bombing in late January.
The previous death toll was 44 but increased to 45 after another wounded person succumbed to their injuries, a community spokesman and hospital official said Friday. Meanwhile, a lone gunman on a motorbike shot dead a senior Pakistani police officer in the volatile southern city Karachi on Friday, police said, the third in an sudden spate of killings targeting senior officers in the city. "The killing of three senior ranking officers in 15 days is quite unusual," a senior police officer requesting not be named told Reuters. "Earlier, low-ranking policemen like constables and assistant subinspectors were being targeted, but now the pattern is changing." It was unclear who was behind the shootings, or even if they are linked.
Friday's killing of Superintendent Ejaz Haider was claimed by both a Taleban spokesman and a Twitter account purporting to be from a breakaway group of Pakistani militants who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi communications. Neither claim could be immediately verified. Pakistani authorities doubt that Islamic State has operational links with Pakistani militants. But it underline fears that the ultra-violent Islamic State is inspiring Pakistani militant groups to emulate it, even if the groups do not share funding or fighters.
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