[Dawn] Pakistan's armed forces launched an assault Wednesday on Taliban hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, killing at least 21 militants in firefights and bombing raids, officials said.The operation began hours after a US drone aircraft fired two missiles into a compound in North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border, killing at least six suspected militants in the latest strike by the spy planes.
Pakistani paramilitary troops began operations just after midnight Wednesday to flush out militants from the outskirts of the main town in the Orakzai tribal district, senior security officials in the region said.
Helicopter gunships also shelled the militants in the same area of Orakzai, part of the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border which is infested with Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists.
"We have reports that 21 terrorists have been killed in Anjani area of Lower Orakzai," said a senior military official in the northwest city of Peshawar.
"One bunker, one ammunition dump and one training centre of the terrorists have also been destroyed by security forces."
Major Fazal-ur-Rehman, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, confirmed that security forces were battling insurgents in Orakzai and there were "militant losses", but did not give the numbers.
An intelligence official in Peshawar gave a higher death toll, telling AFP that 12 Taliban militants were killed in the firefights with Pakistani troops while 11 were killed in the helicopter shelling.