Peshawar, November 14

At least 22 militants were killed today when Pakistani fighter jets bombarded six insurgent hideouts on the country’s troubled northwest frontier bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.

The attacks primarily targeted Taliban positions in North Waziristan’s Shawal area, where the military has been mounting an offensive against militant strongholds for more than a year.

“Fighter jets precisely hit the Taliban’s hideouts at separate locations in Shawal,” a security official in Peshawar told AFP. “Six of their hideouts and an unknown number of vehicles were also destroyed in the air strikes,” the official added.

It was not possible to independently verify the casualties as journalists are banned from travelling to the remote mountainous area.

A second security official confirmed the air strikes and death toll. Both officials spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to media.

The army intensified the ongoing offensive in the region following the massacre of 150 people, mostly children, by Taliban militants at a school in Peshawar last December.

The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 3,600 insurgents in the tribal zone, with 358 soldiers having lost their lives to the chaos.