Eleven militants killed as Pakistani warplanes attack Taliban’s northwestern hideouts
A policeman walks near the front gates of the Mehran naval aviation base after troops ended operations against militants in Karachi. (File Photo)
Pakistani warplanes attacked Taliban positions in the northwestern Orakzai region on Tuesday, killing 11 militants, a senior regional government official said.
Orakzai is one of the tribal regions along the Afghan border where the Pakistani army has tried to root out militants with offensives against their strongholds.
The strike came a day after a local newspaper reported that Pakistan will launch an offensive in North Waziristan, a known sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants also located in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
Orakzai is one of the tribal regions along the Afghan border where the Pakistani army has tried to root out militants with offensives against their strongholds.
The strike came a day after a local newspaper reported that Pakistan will launch an offensive in North Waziristan, a known sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants also located in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
“We had information that militants gathered there and were planning attacks so we launched the attack,” senior government official Zaman Khan told Reuters in Kalaya, the main town of Orakzai. He said six militants were also wounded in the strike.
Pakistan’s performance in fighting militancy has come under scrutiny again after it was discovered that Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden had been living in the country.
Army operations have failed to break the back of militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, who have stepped up suicide bombings since US special forces killed Bin Laden near Islamabad on May 2.
After the Bin Laden raid, the United States has told Pakistan it needs to step up the fight against militants.
More than 4,300 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan in the last four years since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007.
Many of the attacks in Pakistan have targeted security forces, including young cadets or recruits.
Pakistan’s civilian government had said it would review counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States as it comes under growing domestic pressure to penalize Washington for the Bin Laden raid.
Washington did not inform Islamabad that an elite team of Navy SEALs had stealthily come by helicopter to the garrison town of Abbottabad from secret locations in Afghanistan until the commandos had cleared Pakistani airspace after a 40-minute operation, carrying with them Bin Laden’s corpse.
The covert nighttime raid has plunged Pakistani politics into turmoil with both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani facing calls to resign amid growing anti-American sentiment.
Pakistanis have been outraged at the perceived impunity of the US raid, while asking whether their military was too incompetent to know Bin Laden was living close to a major forces academy, or, worse, conspired to protect him.
Washington is pressing Islamabad to investigate how Bin Laden and several wives and children managed to live for five years under the noses of its military in a town just 35 miles north of the capital. Abbottabad houses Pakistan’s national military academy, and is a hill station where many retired military and intelligence personnel live.
One of Bin Laden’s wives told investigators he lived in Pakistan for more than seven years, security officials said. His earlier abode was in a hamlet.(Source: AlArabia)
Pakistan’s performance in fighting militancy has come under scrutiny again after it was discovered that Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden had been living in the country.
Army operations have failed to break the back of militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, who have stepped up suicide bombings since US special forces killed Bin Laden near Islamabad on May 2.
After the Bin Laden raid, the United States has told Pakistan it needs to step up the fight against militants.
More than 4,300 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan in the last four years since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007.
Many of the attacks in Pakistan have targeted security forces, including young cadets or recruits.
Pakistan’s civilian government had said it would review counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States as it comes under growing domestic pressure to penalize Washington for the Bin Laden raid.
Washington did not inform Islamabad that an elite team of Navy SEALs had stealthily come by helicopter to the garrison town of Abbottabad from secret locations in Afghanistan until the commandos had cleared Pakistani airspace after a 40-minute operation, carrying with them Bin Laden’s corpse.
The covert nighttime raid has plunged Pakistani politics into turmoil with both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani facing calls to resign amid growing anti-American sentiment.
Pakistanis have been outraged at the perceived impunity of the US raid, while asking whether their military was too incompetent to know Bin Laden was living close to a major forces academy, or, worse, conspired to protect him.
Washington is pressing Islamabad to investigate how Bin Laden and several wives and children managed to live for five years under the noses of its military in a town just 35 miles north of the capital. Abbottabad houses Pakistan’s national military academy, and is a hill station where many retired military and intelligence personnel live.
One of Bin Laden’s wives told investigators he lived in Pakistan for more than seven years, security officials said. His earlier abode was in a hamlet.(Source: AlArabia)
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