By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistan's army has claimed to have killed 43 suspected Taliban fighters in the North Waziristan tribal area on Thursday.
The army's media wing Inter Services Public Relations said air strikes hit the fighters in the Gharala Mae and Shawal valley areas near the Afghanistan border.
More than 160 fighters have been killed in five consecutive days of strikes by the army, which followed the killing of a provincial official in the northeastern Punjab province in a suicide attack on Sunday.
North Waziristan – one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan – has been a battleground between the army and the Taliban since June 2014 following a full-scale military onslaught that has killed around 3,000 suspected militants.
The figures cannot be independently verified as the army has declared the area off-limits to journalists.
Over 350 soldiers have also lost their lives in landmine blasts and clashes with the Taliban during this period and the military operation has displaced a million tribesmen from North Waziristan.
