Pakistani fighter jets and ground forces pummeled suspected militant hideouts Sunday, killing 80 people in the biggest military response yet to last week's terrorist attack on the Karachi airport, officials said.
The Pakistani military said the operation killed Abu Abdur Rehman Almani, a key commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a militant group that claimed to have participated in the June 8 assault in Karachi that left 36 dead, including 10 attackers, and paralyzed the country's busiest airport.
A statement from the military's Inter Services Public Relations said that most of those killed in Sunday's operation in the North Waziristan tribal area, which began about 1:30 a.m., were Uzbek nationals and others involved in the planning of the Karachi attack. The military's claims could not be immediately verified.
Pakistan's lawless northeastern tribal areas have been bracing for a military onslaught following a drumbeat of of attacks by militant groups believed to be operating in and around North Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had attempted to begin negotiations with the main militant organization, the Pakistani Taliban, which is seeking to overthrow the Islamabad government. But the peace effort has collapsed amid the worsening violence and Sharif is under growing pressure to launch a military campaign against the insurgent group and its allies.
Sharif's government gave tribal elders until June 21 to flush foreign and domestic militants out of their territory, warning that military action would be taken otherwise. Thousands of families have fled their homes in recent days, including more than 600 families that have taken shelter in Khost province across the border in Afghanistan, officials there said.
Tribal elders have begun talks with local Pakistani Taliban factions, but many residents expect further violence. Authorities in neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have begun making plans to accommodate some of the estimated 600,000 people who could be displaced in case of a major military operation.
The Pakistani airstrikes have coincided with a resumption of U.S. drone strikes against suspected militants in North Waziristan. Sixteen people were reported killed in two drone attacks last week that were believed to have been conducted by the CIA as part of its covert military campaign in Pakistan, which had been paused for nearly six months.
Sunday's airstrikes targeted suspected insurgent hideouts in the Datta Khel area, hitting residential compounds and destroying an ammunition dump. A curfew was imposed in the area for an indefinite period of time, stranding villagers who were trying to flee the bombardment, according to residents reached by phone.
Sources in Miramshah, the regional headquarters of North Waziristan, said the death toll could rise. Residents said that following airstrikes, Pakistani ground troops backed by helicopter gunships began to heavily shell Mir Ali, the second largest town in North Waziristan, killing 10 people.
Three soldiers were injured when an improvised bomb struck a military vehicle near Miramshah.
Ali is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Bengali reported from Mumbai, India.
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