Fresh strikes: 38 militants killed in Tirah Valley air blitz

Key commanders were among the dead, according to security sources .

BARA: In early Sunday morning air strikes in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency, security forces claim to have killed at least 38 militants, including key commanders. Six hideouts were also destroyed, they added.

Security sources said that fighter jets bombed the hideouts as well as landmine-making factories in the Ghaibi Nika area of Tirah Valley, where mostly militants from Lashkar-e-Islam group are based. Factories and several stockpiles of explosives were also destroyed in the blitz.

On Thursday, at least seven militants were killed and six injured in two air strikes in Bara Tehsil of Khyber Agency. In the first strike, around three militants were killed and an IED-making factory was flattened.

In Thursday’s air raids, the security forces claimed that they had targeted militants involved in the attack on a cinema in Peshawar on February 11 and in the killing of Major Jahanzeb in FR Peshawar on February 18.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2014.