Shawal air blitz kills 40 terrorists

“There are also reports of many terrorists [getting] injured in the strikes,” ISPR statement added

RAWALPINDI:

Hours after two suicide bombers mowed down 19 people, including Punjab Home Minister Col (retd) Shuja Khanzada, in Attock, the military killed at least 40 terrorists in air strikes in Shawal Valley, the last stronghold of local and foreign militants in North Waziristan Agency, where a massive military operation, codenamed Zarb-e-Azb, has been ongoing since mid-June, last year.

According to a statement issued by the military’s media wing — the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) — warplanes carried out ‘precise aerial strikes’ Sunday afternoon and successfully targeted and destroyed a number of militants’ dens.

It claimed that 40 terrorists were killed in the air raids. “There are also reports of many terrorists [getting] injured in the strikes,” it added.

The INP news agency claimed that the air blitz targeted the hideout of Commander Waheed, alias Jaigri, of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and also destroyed a stockpile of ammunitions. However, the claim could not be verified independently because the region is off-limits to media persons.



According to a statement issued by the military on the first anniversary of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, over 2,700 militants have been killed in combat while more than 350 security personnel also lost their lives while fighting terrorists.

The military claims to have cleansed most parts of the troubled agency of terrorists and successfully destroyed ‘terrorist sanctuaries’ and their command and control structure, while targeted operations are under way to eliminate some pockets of resistance near the border with Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of tribesmen displaced by fighting have also started returning to their homes.

Fleeing terrorists is said to be holed up in Shawal Valley, a thickly-forested mountainous region near the Pak-Afghan border.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2015.