Pakistani military kills 67 militants days after Taliban school attack
PUBLISHED : Friday, 19 December, 2014, 11:12pm
UPDATED : Friday, 19 December, 2014, 11:12pm
Associated Press in Islamabad
Indian journalists and NGO workers hold vigil for victims of Taliban attack on Pakistani school. Photo: EPA
Pakistani jets and ground forces killed 67 militants in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said yesterday, days after Taliban fighters killed 148 people - most of them children - in a school massacre.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani prosecutor said the government would try to cancel the bail that had been granted to the main suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks - a decision that outraged neighbouring India and called into question Pakistan's commitment to fighting militancy.
The violence at a school in Pakistan's northwest earlier this week stunned the country and brought cries for retribution. In the wake of the mass killing the military has struck targets in the Khyber tribal region and approved the death penalty for six convicted terrorists.
The military said its ground forces late on Thursday killed 10 militants while jets killed another 17, including an Uzbek commander. Another 32 alleged terrorists were killed by security forces in an ambush in Tirah valley in Khyber yesterday as they headed toward the Afghan border, the military said.
Khyber Agency is one of two main areas in the northwest where the military has been trying to root out militants in recent months. Khyber borders Peshawar, where the school massacre happened, and militants have traditionally attacked the city before fleeing into the tribal region where police can't chase them.
The other area is North Waziristan, where the military launched a massive operation in June.
In the southern province of Baluchistan, Pakistani security forces killed a senior Pakistani Taliban leader along with seven of his associates in three separate pre-dawn raids, said a tribal police officer, Ali Ahmed.
Army chief General Raheel Sharif late on Thursday signed death warrants of six "hard-core terrorists" convicted and sentenced to death by military courts, the army said.
It was unclear when the military planned to hang the six men, but authorities generally move quickly once death warrants are signed.
An anti-terrorism court on Thursday granted bail to the main suspect in the Mumbai attack, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi.
Lakhvi is one of seven people on trial in Pakistan for the assault, but the trial has produced no results so far. It has been closed to the media.
India reacted with outrage to news of Lakhvi's pending release.
Special public prosecutor Abu Zar Peerzada said he would appeal to cancel the bail.
