Bombing hideouts: Fighter jets kill 15 militants in Orakzai blitz

Five TTP hideouts destroyed; militant trenches in Landi Kotal also bombed.

HANGU:

Fighter jets continued to bombard militant hideouts in Upper Orakzai Agency on Saturday, killing at least 15 members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, security forces said.

An official of the security forces said that jets bombed TTP hideouts in Tambo Sar, Satar Sok, Durrani Masi, and Arghanjo areas, destroying five of them, including the strategically important hideout in Tambo Sar.

The official claimed that several militants were injured and the number of fatalities could rise. However, the exact number of casualties could not be confirmed.

Speaking to journalists, TTP’s Orakzai chapter spokesperson Hafiz Saeed claimed that even though the hideouts were destroyed, the number of casualties reported by security forces were not true, adding that just a few of their fighters were killed.

Saturday’s raid was the eighth such attack on TTP hideouts in the agency in 2013. Security forces claim that around 63 militants were killed in the previous seven raids and more than 20 hideouts were wiped out.



8 militants killed in Landi Kotal

Fighter jets pounded militant trenches in the remote Bazaar Zakha Khel areas of Landi Kotal subdivision of Khyber Agency, killing eight militants on Saturday afternoon.

Khasadar line officer Swalzar Khan said that two fighter jets bombed the hideouts of Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), destroying one of their check-posts near Tirah Valley, killing eight LI militants.

Swalzar said that the Mirzoi check post was destroyed in the bombing while the Takhtaki, Tour Chapar and Kata Kanray check-posts were also bombed. However, the number of militants killed in the bombing of these check posts couldn’t be ascertained. LI militants have shifted the injured to an undisclosed location in the valley.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2013.