Pakistan Launches ’Massive’ Anti-Taliban Offensive, 17 Militants Killed

Local Editor

Pakistani air strikes Friday killed at least 17 militants in the country's restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan as Pakistani troops began a "massive" air and ground offensive to try to push the Taliban from their last major stronghold in the mountainous northwestern region of North Waziristan.

The heavily forested ravines of the Shawal Valley are pockmarked with Taliban hideouts and the valley itself is a key smuggling route into neighboring Afghanistan.

Further, Pakistani jets began bombing the valley in the early hours, killing between six and 15 militants, four intelligence sources declared.

"It is a massive military action against the Taliban militants and their allies in the Shawal Mountains," said a government official who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about military operations.

Moreover, the Pakistani Taliban controlled almost all of North Waziristan until troops launched a long-awaited offensive there in June. The Taliban still maintained control of Shawal Valley and had used it as a launching pad for attacks on Pakistani forces.

However, a spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

The Pakistani Taliban are allied with Afghan Taliban and share a similar Takfiri ideology. But they operate as a separate entity, focused on toppling the Pakistani state and establishing strict extremist rule in the nuclear-armed nation.

Furthermore, NATO forces, which left Afghanistan, last year, repeatedly urged Pakistan to take action against Taliban havens along its border.

Residents said tanks and soldiers were approaching the valley from the north and south.

In a parallel notion, Pakistani air force jets targeted militants' hideouts on the edge of the Afghan border in the thick mountainous forests in the Wareka Mandi area of Shawal district in North Waziristan tribal region, 65 kilometers [40 miles] west of its capital Miranshah.

The strikes came two days after the massacre of 45 Ismaili Muslims in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi claimed by "ISIL" and the Taliban's Jundullah faction which had previously reportedly allied itself to "ISIL".

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team