Pakistani jet fighters struck militant hideouts in the Orakzai region today, killing 42 insurgents, government said in the latest in a series of assaults on militants in the country's northwest.
Aircraft attacked militant positions in three areas of the Orakzai region where government forces have intensified attacks in recent weeks after largely clearing Taliban strongholds in other areas.
"Our jet fighters carried out strikes after information that militants were present in these areas," said a security official.
A government official, Nauman Khan, said 42 militants were killed and 18 wounded in the air assaults.
A Taliban spokesman confirmed the attacks but denied any casualties, saying the jet fighters only bombed abandoned houses.
The military says several hundred Taliban fighters have been killed in Orakzai in recent weeks but there has been no independent confirmation of that. The Taliban usually dispute the army's accounts of engagements.
Despite heavy losses, militants have been to able to hit back and have carried out a wave of bomb and gun attacks, killing hundreds of people across the country.
Taliban militants killed between at least 84 people in attacks on worshippers from a minority religious group known as Ahmadis in two mosques of the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Friday.
The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, but many in Pakistan, including the government, do not. In 1974, Pakistan became the only Muslim state to declare Ahmadis non-Muslims and prohibited the open practice of their faith.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan joined the US-led campaign against militancy after the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Pakistani action against militants along the Afghan border is seen as crucial for US efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.
Reuters