Pakistan Airstrikes Kill Over 30 Militants, Destroy Terrorist Hideouts

The Pakistan Armed Forces killed at least 31 militants, including some suicide bombers, and destroyed four terrorist hideouts and a suicide bomber training center in the country's northwest.

MOSCOW, January 3 (Sputnik) — The Pakistan Armed Forces killed at least 31 militants and destroyed a number of shelters and training facilities in the country's northwest, the army said Saturday.

"[Four] terrorist hideouts and a suicide bomber training center were destroyed. 31 terrorists, including some suicide bombers, were killed in precise aerial strikes in Tirrah, Khyber today," the army's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press statement read.

Earlier on Saturday, a southeast Afghan province spokesperson was quoted as saying that the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) precision airstrikes killed at least 18 militants in the region that shares its border with Pakistan.

Pakistan stepped up military operations against tribal areas shortly after the December 16 Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that claimed 148 lives, most of them children. The government also lifted its moratorium on the death penalty, executing a number of suspected terrorists over the past two weeks and planning to hang a total of 500 death row inmates.