By Aamir Latif
ISLAMABAD
The Pakistani army killed 23 suspected militants on the fourth consecutive day of air strikes on Taliban hideouts in North Waziristan on Thursday, bringing the death toll to nearly 1200 over the last three months, officials said.
The Inter Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan army said that military gunships specifically targeted militant hideouts in Zerom, and the Ismailkhel areas of Dattakhel town which lie on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The figures, however, cannot be verified independently because of absence of media in the operation-hit areas.
A demand for verification of the army’s claims regarding militants’ deaths was echoed in Pakistan’s upper house, the senate.
The army launched a much-demanded onslaught on North Waziristan, dubbed as the heartland of militancy by the U.S. and its allies in the so-called 'war on terror', on June 15. The campaign was to eradicate the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of various insurgent networks in Pakistan.
A total of 88 soldiers have also been killed in clashes and landmine blasts during this period. The ongoing operation has caused a wholesale migration from various parts of the region forcing nearly a million people to take refuge in the nearby Bannu district.
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