[The News (Pak) Top Stories] Security forces on Friday claimed to have killed 27 suspected militants in the remote Tirah Valley. Security officials said they had killed 27 suspected militants in helicopter and artillery shelling on their hideouts. The claim could not be confirmed from independent sources.Since the launch of the operation on September 1, unofficial figures have confirmed the death of 35 people, majority of them civilians. However, official figures suggest that nearly 250 volunteers of the banned Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) had been killed in the operation.
Security officials said two LI commanders were among the 27 militants killed in Dora and Landi Killay. The helicopters started pounding the suspected locations at 10 am and continued till 2 pm without any break.
Officials said two security men were also injured in the operation. The injured were shifted to a hospital in a military helicopter for treatment. Officials also claimed destruction of two LI centres and 19 vehicles, one of which was stated to be loaded with explosives.
The claim was spurned by LI spokesman Zar Khan, who said none of their volunteers was killed or injured. He said the LI fighters had inflicted huge casualties on the troops during the fighting. Independent sources, however, confirmed the destruction of four LI vehicles in the military operation.
Also, the three-hour relaxation in curfew in the Bara subdivision of the Khyber Agency was ended on Friday and 24-hour curfew clamped.The three-hour relaxation was given after complaints of the people of the area about problems in taking patients to hospitals and shortage of food items.