Some 30 militants were killed in the latest air strikes targeting suspected hideouts in North Waziristan Agency on Friday.
The military has been conducting a massive operation codenamed Zarb-e-Azb since mid-June.
“Precise aerial strikes were carried out on terrorists’ hideouts in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan,” the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said in a statement. “Thirty terrorists, including foreigners, were killed,” it added.
Hundreds of terrorists have been killed since June 15 when the military launched the much-awaited operation in North Waziristan where local militants and their foreign cohorts had set up sanctuaries.
Over in Khyber Agency where a security operation, codenamed Khyber-I, has been ongoing since mid-October, militants slaughtered a man for allegedly spying for security forces.
According to local sources, the militants dumped the body of the man, who couldn’t be immediately identified, on a roadside in the Mehraban Kalay area of Jamrud. They threatened local tribesmen against burying the body so that people could know the consequences of spying for the government. Later in the evening the body was buried.
In a related incident volunteers of a pro-government militia seized two suspected members of the Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-e-Islam militant group from the Karkhano Market area, on the edge of Peshawar.
According to a local source, Tauheedul Islam (TuI) volunteers came to Karkhano Market and took away two alleged members of LeI – identified as Riaz and Mehrab Gul – to an unidentified location for questioning.
Local lawmaker MNA Alhaj Shah Jee Gul Afridi lent his complete support to the ongoing operation in Khyber Agency. He said that although local tribesmen have been badly affected by the operation, they would cooperate with the government and security forces against militants.
Wall chalking in favour of ISIS
Wall chalking praising the Islamic State (IS), which is also known with its Arabic name Da’ish, appeared in the Bannu cantonment area Friday morning.
“An intelligence official on duty on Bannu-Miramshah Road informed the police about wall-chalking in favour of ISIS at different locations along the highway,” an official of the cantonment police told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity.
Earlier wall chalking praising ISIS had also appeared in Karachi, Lahore and Khanewal triggering fear that the ultra-extremist group which has declared a self-styled caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria might be making inroads into Pakistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 15th, 2014.
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