Pakistan kills over 60 alleged militants in Waziristan air strike

Pakistan's military said it had killed at least 60 militants and injured at least 30 in aerial raids on terrorist hide-outs across the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border early on Wednesday.

Local residents, however, said the dead included women and children.

The strikes were carried out in retaliation for recent attacks by the Taliban, and came a day after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the chief of the army, Gen Raheel Sharif, met to review the security situation in the country.

''Confirmed militant hide-outs were targeted early morning today in North Waziristan through precision aerial strikes,'' said a senior security official, who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity.

The official said the strikes had been carried out after security forces received intelligence reports that ''terrorists involved in recent attacks'' in Peshawar and two other areas were ''in these hide-outs''.

Another security official said that foreign militants were the main targets of the strikes. ''Pakistani militants and foreign militants from the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement were the targets,'' the security official said.

There were unconfirmed reports that two Pakistani militant commanders were killed in the airstrikes.

The tribal region that borders Afghanistan is inundated with local and foreign militants, and Pakistani state control is very limited.

The aerial strikes in North Waziristan came almost two weeks after at least nine soldiers were killed there when a powerful explosion hit a convoy carrying security forces.

Though the military denied there were any civilian casualties in Wednesday's raid, local tribesmen said that at least 10 civilians were killed in the strikes. The claims could not be independently verified.

The strikes were carried out about 2 am in different parts of Miranshah, a town in the restive North Waziristan tribal region, which has long been a bastion for militant factions.

The strikes prompted the local government to impose a curfew in the area for fear of possible reprisals against security forces.

Phones went dead in most parts of the tribal region after the strikes, and there was no independent confirmation of the number of casualties.

Separately, six people were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in southwestern Baluchistan Province, the local news media reported.

At about 4:30 am, gunmen forced their way into the house of Abdul Hameed Baloch, a schoolteacher, in Dasht Chot village, about 25 miles from Turbat, a small town in the province, and opened fire, killing six.