At Least 50 Suspected Militants Killed In Pakistani Air Strikes

Pakistani soldiers patrol the compound of Taliban leaders in Bajaur, one of the country's tribal regions.

Pakistani military air strikes today killed at least 50 suspected militants in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, news agencies report.

The strikes in the Mamuzai district of the Orazkai Agency targeted a school used by the Taliban, as well as a madrassah.

AP quotes unnamed intelligence officials as saying that the madrassah was a center for a nonviolent Islamic missionary group, Tablighi Jamaat, but that Taliban leaders were thought to be meeting there.

Orazkai, an ethnic Pashtun tribal region, is one of the areas in Pakistan’s northwest where Taliban militants have taken refuge since Pakistani military operations drove them out of South Waziristan. The tribal agency is also a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who is believed to have been killed by a U.S. missile strike in South Waziristan in January.

compiled from agency reports