Pakistani jets kill 45 people in Khyber: militants
Ibrahim Shinwari
PESHAWAR, Pakistan
Sat Apr 10, 2010 8:55am EDT
(Reuters) - Pakistani fighter jets bombed a militant position in the Khyber region on the Afghan border on Saturday, killing at least 45 people, a senior member of a militant group in the region said.
The strike was carried out in the remote valley of Tirah, the militant, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
"They first hit a house where our people were present and minutes later, when people got there to remove bodies from the rubble, jets attacked again," the militant said.
He said the dead included both militants and civilians.
A military spokesman confirmed that aircraft bombed militant hideouts in the region but said he had no information about casualties.
"We anticipate that the number of dead would be high because the bombardment was very intense," Rehan Khattak, a senior government official in the region, told Reuters. "We're trying to get exact figures."
A semi-autonomous Pashtun tribal region, Khyber is a major route for Western supplies trucked from Karachi's port to landlocked Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. Militants have frequently attacked convoys in the region.
Security forces have recently stepped up offensives in Khyber and neighboring Orakzai regions to combat militants, who fled military sweeps in the Taliban strongholds of Swat, South Waziristan and Bajaur last year.
Militant attacks on supply convoys have forced the United States and its allies, who have forces in Afghanistan, to think of alternative routes.
Pakistani action against militants along the Afghan border is seen as crucial to U.S. efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, particularly as Washington sends more troops to fight a raging Taliban insurgency before a gradual withdrawal starts in 2011.
Pakistani jets kill 45 people in Khyber: militants | Reuters