“In precision air strikes, 53 terrorists including some foreigners were killed,” the military said in a statement,
Pakistani officials refer to the Arab and Central Asian militants who fled to the tribal lands after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 as “foreigners”.
“Six terrorist hideouts, an ammunition dump and seven explosive-laden vehicles were also destroyed” in the air strikes, the statement added.
Meanwhile, the air strikes pounded terrorists’ dens in Dattakhel, North Waziristan tribal district, where 35 militants were killed on Sunday.
Pakistan Army began a long-awaited push to clear insurgent bases from North Waziristan last June after a bloody Taliban attack on Karachi airport finally sank faltering peace talks.
Air strikes, artillery, mortars and ground troops have all been used to take back territory.
The army has intensified its offensive since the Taliban’s massacre of 150 people, 134 of them children, in a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December.
