More than 500 militants have been killed during the recent offensive in restive border regions (photo supplied by Pakistan's military)
Pakistan’s military has killed 20 militants in the latest air strikes on remote hideouts in the restive tribal belt of North Waziristan.
The death toll included foreign militants as the military recaptured a local ammunition factory along with a large cache of arms, improvised explosive devices including six production facilities and foreign currency, the Pakistani army’s public relations service said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Four isolated terrorist hideouts were destroyed through aerial strikes in Shawal Valley, killing 20 local and foreign militants,” it added without identifying the nationalities of those killed.
Pakistan’s military has been supported by almost daily drone strikes. At least 15 people were killed when a drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout on Pakistan’s remote border with Afghanistan over the weekend.
More than 500 militants and 25 soldiers have been killed in Pakistan since the military launched a major new offensive in response to a terrorist attack on Karachi’s international airport that killed 36 people on June 8.
Nearly one million people have fled the military offensive so far, said Federal Minister for State and Frontier Regions Lieutenant-General Abdul Qadir Baloch.
Most have headed for displacement camps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the military says it has supplied more than 140,000 food packages to coincide with Eid, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.