Campaign intensifies: Fresh aerial strikes in North Waziristan kill 25 militants

Jets target suspected terror hideouts in Datta Khel.

PESHAWAR: At least 25 militants were killed in “precise aerial strikes” that targeted half a dozen hideouts of terrorists in the North Waziristan town of Datta Khel , a military spokesman said on Thursday.

In a short statement, the Inter-Services Press Relations, the military’s media wing, said that fighter jets had targeted several suspected militant hideouts in Datta Khel, close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The statement added that fighting in the neighbouring mountainous area of Shawal has intensified. The military has been pounding militant positions in the area for months now.

Following the attack on the air force camp in Badhaber last month, the military had launched strikes in Shawal, killing at least 10 militants. Earlier in September, the first ever armed drone strike by the military was carried out in the valley targeting a militant compound and killing three ‘high-profile’ terrorists.

Officials claim most of the militants have been cornered in the areas close to the border, adding that the 16 month-long Zarbe Azb operation has entered its final stages.

Pakistan Army had launched a massive operation, Zarb-e-Azb, in North Waziristan in mid-June last year to flush out Taliban militants and their foreign cohorts. According to an official tally released on the first anniversary of the offensive, as many as 2,700 militants had been killed and many more wounded in combat.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2015.