{"id":517,"date":"2014-10-26T20:53:16","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T18:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=517"},"modified":"2014-10-26T21:10:17","modified_gmt":"2014-10-26T19:10:17","slug":"pakistan-air-strikes-kill-18-militants-near-afghan-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=517","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan air strikes kill 18 militants near Afghan border"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pakistan’s military said on Sunday it had killed 18 militants in air attacks in a troubled tribal district near the Afghan border.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A Pakistan Air Force\u2019s aircraft prepares for landing at Bacha Khan airport in Peshaswar June 26, 2014. (Photo by Reuters)<\/p><\/div>\n

The strikes took place Saturday night in Khyber district, where the Taliban and another banned militant group the Lashkar-e-Islam have taken refuge, the military said in a statement.<\/p>\n

It said a huge cache of arms and ammunition was also destroyed.<\/p>\n

Pakistan has been battling Islamist groups in its semi-autonomous tribal belt since 2004 after its army entered the region to search for Al-Qaeda fighters who had fled across the border following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

In June the army began an offensive against militant hideouts in the North Waziristan tribal agency after a bloody raid on Karachi Airport ended faltering peace talks between the government and the Taliban.<\/p>\n

North Waziristan is a major base for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The United States has long called for action against militant groups in North Waziristan, who have used the area as a staging post for attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Pakistan’s army says it has killed more than a thousand militants and lost 86 soldiers since the start of the operation.<\/p>\n

But the toll and identity of those killed is difficult to verify because journalists do not have regular access to the conflict zones.<\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong>\u00a0Agence France Presse, Islamabad –\u00a0Sunday, 26 October 2014 (alarabiya.net<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan’s military said on Sunday it had killed 18 militants in air attacks in a troubled tribal district near the Afghan border. The strikes took place Saturday night in Khyber district, where the Taliban...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,21],"tags":[198,285,195,356,351,355,354],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}