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| India-Pakistan |
| Jets attack militants, 42 killed in Orakzai |
| 2010-06-01 |
| [Dawn] Pakistani jet fighters struck militant hideouts in the Orakzai region on Monday, killing 42 insurgents, government and security officials said the latest in a series of assaults on militants in the country's northwest. Warplanes 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 one security official, who declined to be identified. A government official, Nauman Khan, said 42 militants were killed and 18 wounded in the air assaults. A Taliban spokesman, Hafiz Saeed, 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. |
| Posted by:Fred |