Islamabad : Pakistani fighter jets Thursday pounded hideouts of the militants in the Khyber tribal region and killed 37 of them, military sources said.
The sources said that 18 other militants were injured in the strikes at the mountainous Tirah Valley close to the Afghan border, Xinhua reported Thursday.
Military sources earlier stated that those targeted were behind a deadly bomb attack in Islamabad’s fruit market that killed dozens of people.
The suspects were also involved in a series of bomb attacks in the northwestern districts of Peshawar and Charsadda.
Security sources said the air strikes were carried out to hit the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and the outlawed Lahskar-i- Islam. Both groups are blamed for attacks on the security forces and pro-government tribesmen in Khyber agency, a main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Several militant hideouts were destroyed in the bombing started early morning.
According to an earlier report, at least 24 suspected militants were killed and 20 others injured in a massive aerial assault launched early Thursday by Pakistani security forces in parts of the Khyber tribal region.
Fighter jets continued carrying out assaults but media personnel did not have free access to the area, the report said.