Banned TTP, Lashkar-e-Islam hideouts destroyed in Kyber Agency air strikes

Five hideouts of takfiri nasbi terrorists were destroyed as security forces bombard their havens in the tribal belt on Friday. Pakistan’s military said it also killed 15 (takfiri nasbi) insurgents in air strikes in a restive tribal district near the Afghan border, a region where it has been battling Islamist groups for more than a decade.

Sources said that the Pakistan Air Force warplanes also targeted hideouts belonging to the proscribed Lashkar-e-Islam and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Bara, Nala Khajoori and Yousuf Talaab area of Khyber tribal region.

The air strikes are part of Pakistan’s drive against militants in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

“Three terrorist hideouts were destroyed and 15 terrorists were killed in effective and precise aerial strikes early Friday morning in Khyber”, where the Taliban and another banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam, have taken refuge, the military said in a statement. The News updated that 5 hideouts were destroyed.

Pakistan has been battling takfiri groups (who the Western media dubs Islamists) in its semi-autonomous tribal belt since 2004 after its army entered the region to search for Al-Qaeda fighters that had fled across the border following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

In June, the army began an operation in the North Waziristan district after a bloody raid on Karachi Airport ended faltering peace talks that began earlier in the year. North Waziristan had become a major base for the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban), which rose up against the state in 2007.

Pakistan’s army says it has killed more than a thousand militants and lost 86 soldiers since the start of the operation. But the toll and identity of those killed is impossible to verify because journalists do not have regular access to the conflict zones.