Pakistani Army Air Raids Kill 17 Pro-Taliban Militants

Pakistani security sources said the airstrikes were carried out in the militant-infested Shawal district of the North Waziristan tribal region on Friday.

A senior local security official said that Pakistani military aircraft destroyed militant hideouts during the aerial attacks in the thick mountainous forests in the Wareka Mandi area, located 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of the regional capital, Miranshah.

"The air force jets pounded the areas close to the Afghan border in thick forests and killed at least 17 militants. Three compounds and five vehicles were also destroyed in the action," a senior security official in Miranshah said.

The strikes came two days after the massacre of nearly 50 Ismaili Shia Muslims in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. The attack was claimed by the pro-Taliban Jundullah terrorists, which had previously allied itself to the ISIL Takfiri group.

Wednesday's attack on the Pakistani Ismailis was the second-deadliest in the country so far this year after 62 other Ismailis were killed in a bombing in late January, Press TV reported.

The Pakistani army started an operation against militant hideouts in North Waziristan last June, after a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s faltering peace talks with the pro-Taliban militants.

The military says it has killed more than 1,200 militants since launching the June 15, 2014 operation.

The tribal regions on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan have been a hideout for Takfiri militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the pro-Taliban militants, during the past years. The militants use the mountainous border area to launch attacks in both countries.