War in North-West Pakistan

Situation will most likely escalate to unimaginable proportions and for that reason invading Iran like Pakistan will not happen.

nightcrawler wrote:Look this ain't a problem for us to shoot down incoming drones/helis; we surely are that capable!!
Problem lie in the corrupted/covert treaties signed b/w USA & Musharaaff as well as the huge amounts of money poured by US in our politicians pockets

You know as many are saying currently on Stratfor and other sites is the same thing!

Richard Armitage stuck his pistol up Musharraf's ass-hole on 9-12-2001, and told him point blank that if Musharraf didn't hand over the nukes, he was gonna pull the trigger right then and there......

Musharraf was given a set of demands (after the nukes were confiscated), this has been admitted by Musharraf..........he just obliged or else Pakistan faced a direct nuclear attack from both the US and India.

Now Pakistan enjoys its second colonialism.

Blackwater runnin around in the country......mercenaries everywhere......Target killings left and right to provoke and destabilise the major cities. Very back in the 80's Lebanon like situation, and that being by design.

Whenever I looked up at an aircraft flying overhead, while being in Karachi for over an year....that aircraft was either a US Marine Corps CH-47 or a CH-53. The only other ones I used to see were NATO C-130H's.

I mean the most amazing thing I noticed while being in Pakistan was the complete and utter lack of a government!

Well I guess you gotta hand it to the US and the Jews for not only orchestrating 9-11's or for that matter all the other terrorism that goes down fairly regularly around the planet, but also having successfully disarmed, dismembered and neutered all these muslim countries, specially so in Pakistan's case of having done it without firing a single shot! It is an amazing achievement.

@lulldapull

Sorry sir nukes are secured here in hands oo our military.
Its our politicians that may be corrupted & seriously they dont get indulge in our nuke policy neither those who opera country's nukes are answerable to corrupted parliament. Much like US Guantanamo Bay policy~~totally clandestine.

Regarding Musharaff he did for the country what was needed at that time. We sure are helpless when US warns of a war upon PAKISTAN we dont need our country to be converted to ashes!!

Nightcrawler, what good were Pakistan's nukes when they were needed most?

So, just like when Pakistan lost its sovereignty on 9-12-2001, so it did with its nukes too!

I cannot for even a second believe that the thoroughly corrupt, incompetent and sold out Pakistan military, its on the CIA payroll intelligence agencies nor its precolonial mindset inferiority complex ridden civilian leadership be held accountable for securing the country's nuclear program. Are you kidding me?

There is no way on this planet that Pakistan still retains control over its nukes....let alone its freedom. The country is headed toward becoming another Yugoslavia.......with the U.S. and India hell bent on destabilizing and in all probability dismembering it.

People in Karachi openly talk of secession now, and if you are not Baloch you cannot go to Balochistan. The Baloch on CIA payroll almost instantly kill any non Baloch who try to even pass through their territory.

Same is true for the NWFP, as the hatred for Punjabi's or for that matter anyone non Pushtun is at a dangerous level.

The shit is totally out of control.

Do you know that a massive and brand new U.S. consulate has opened in Karachi across from the street Beach Luxury Hotel? probably housing all them fukking Blackwater/ Titan mercenaries?

The future for Pakistan looks pretty bleak....I can't imagine you disagreeing on that.

Honestly, if American gunships are flying over my head and all I have is a little rifle, I don't think I would be shooting at it knowing they are hunting militants with rifles. Now if I had an Igla, that is a different story.

Exactly Vlad.

They will kill people who look like they are carrying something and then ask questions later.

Easier to let them fly and then when the next NATO truck drives through the town taking supplies to NATO forces... well then you can shoot, or get a large group of the local population to block the road and pinch the supplies.
Make sure there are lots of women and children there so no one opens fire.

@lulldapull

Thnx for elaborating..
Pakistan future what i see isn't very close to bleak but to a revolution just like Iran in 1979; though I totally oppose any Islamic/religious theocratic revolution but it will not come to Pakistan relatively modern Muslims.
Talking about situations in Baluch; Waziristan & Karachi no one is arguing about unpatriotic sentiments as a whole but rather a group aided by foreign hands are irking Pakistan situation & those need to be sort out. your thinking of unpatriotic sentiments is simply absurd!!

Do you know that a massive and brand new U.S. consulate has opened in Karachi across from the street Beach Luxury Hotel? probably housing all them fukking Blackwater/ Titan mercenaries?

I know & all I can saw let them work & you will see how our ISI work in near future.
Regarding nukes; we have them only for deterring not for initiating war & you can admire that India is well kept at bay & so is US (thats why they are sorry for helis incursion at our borders) check it out or I will post the link.

You may also want to know that day before yesterday 5 German talibans were killed in UCAV attack & they were not all from Pakistan blood!!

@Vladimir79

Now if I had an Igla, that is a different story

We have Anza for that purpose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anza_(missile)

nightcrawler wrote:

We have Anza for that purpose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anza_(missile)

Doubt if Frontier Corps is that well armed.

If Anzas were deployed in numbers in that region of Pakistan I would suspect the Taleban would have as many as they wanted... and they clearly don't.

Of course if Israel or the US were dumb enough to attack Iran I could see large numbers of Iranian made MANPADs and ATGMs flooding both Afghanistan and Iraq and suddenly mobility will become a serious issue in both places.

The main reason the Iranians have not done so so far is that so far the US has done them two favours. The Taleban are sunni and so was Saddam so by removing both Sunni regimes the US and NATO has aided the Iranians because if the status quo continues and the US leaves it will be normal for the Shia majorities in both Iraq and Afghanistan to dominate both countries so Iran wins.

@Vladimir79

Doubt if Frontier Corps is that well armed.

Thing is that Pakistan like I said before need not to down US drones although it can but problem still revolves around those clandestine treaties in Musharraf era

@GarryB

If Anzas were deployed in numbers in that region of Pakistan I would suspect the Taleban would have as many as they wanted... and they clearly don't

Thing is right now foreign aided terrorists (like I proved before) are destabilizing Pakistan & currently they are biggest threat to our sovereignty ( though I do know that those sentiments are our forefathers creation!!).
If US or any other nation we take as a greater threat relative to Taliban we will surely side with Taliban & you will see them Anzassss...

His interview was in Urdu language..so I don't post it rather I just post the translated work:
Firstly he is Not a general.. but equivalent to a colonel in the USAF.

1. Mentioned how US helicopters evaded Pakistani radars. Using various techniques such as NoE flight.. and what US jamming capability is(both Radar and communication jamming) and placed doubt on the current chief's statement that the aircraft were late to respond by mentioning the response times of the PAF equipped with F-86's and FPS-20 systems back in the early 60's as better than what the current chief claims today's PAF to be. Narrates an incident relating to a 70's visit by a USAF EW aircraft wherby as a demonstration the USAF aircraft jammed the then Pakistani radars via noise jamming and flew into the airspace undetected.

2. Vis a Vis India.. on the journalists question, he relates that India holds back due to the PAF's capability, which he states is potent enough to set back India a decade or so in military and other infrastructure in the event of a conflict. At the same time, he states that Indian aircraft such as the Sukhoi's could use their massive range extended by refuellers to strike Pakistani targets from the southwest ..bypassing the eastern defenses by flying along the coast.
He also states that an attack by India on Pakistani cities under the lieu of going after terrorists will not only get through Pakistani defenses , it will also be lauded by the International community as just.

In the nutshell.. I think I got everything.

Explaining Comprehensively....
Provided that our land-based radars are mostly US origin so we cant deceive the manufacturers. The AESA radars upon our AWACs are mostly Swedish based
more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erieye
& upcoming be Chinese/Russian based
more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KJ-2000 & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaanxi_Y-8#Variants

The problem is that we can't operate these AWACs 24/7 & thus we lose the game against the US intervention probably by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing/Sikorsky_RAH-66_Comanche

this is somewhat guaranteed because one of these helis got shot down or crashed & the wreckage resemble the stealth Comanche....

The question from my side is this:
In case our radars get blinded & we can identify this abnormal behaviour can we then order two/three planes ~F-16 Bl-52/D to get airborne & move to the proposed area of intrusion. I know this be a wild chase but our territory being less spacious & we know the intervention most likely be occurring in our FATA (close to Afghanistan) areas is this be a good choice. I mean MiG-31 had some look down Radars...but can anyone tell me that such systems are effective against low flying stealth heli or do the radars can't differentiate because of ground clutter??

The Commanche program is finished and closed.


The so called stealth aircraft is a modified black hawk.

In the US any aircraft painted black is a stealth aircraft including SR-71 and U-2.

(BTW don't listen to any BS about SR-71 or U-2 being stealthy they weren't... the Soviets never had any trouble at all in tracking both aircraft from very long range.)

The issue I see is that if you get your air defences to the point where they can stop your ally and best friend the US from violating your airspace then when they want to do what they want (and they will) they will be forced to do damage to your air defence network.

What you need is a range of types of mobile detection systems including radar and IR... the Russians have a very simple cheap system that looks like lots of thin skeleton frame power poles lined up like a fence that generate a weak signal directly upwards. Anything flying over the fence is detected and defences are alerted.

The most important thing is that you have defences around the things you want to protect so that even if they penetrate your airspace they will have trouble hitting targets you want to protect... and I am thinking of nuclear storage facilities here...

What you need is a range of types of mobile detection systems including radar and IR... the Russians have a very simple cheap system that looks like lots of thin skeleton frame power poles lined up like a fence that generate a weak signal directly upwards. Anything flying over the fence is detected and defences are alerted.

Now thats a simple effective solution.
Provided that US will not directly hit our installations...bcz of international treaties but detecting them is our first priority...u can very much observe the pressure that our army is facing right now; not because they let Abbottabad operation let happen but they were unaware of it.
This however (as they stated) was beyond our technical capabilities...& perhaps they are true. Because our land based radars are simple mechanical rotatory radars & PESA/AESA radars only are upon our naval & airborne platforms; which of coarse are resistant to jamming.

When confronted by a Chinese with respect to China Vs US a senior US army personnel said this: (~matter of great concern)

Electronically speaking...ANY place that has electricity is 'lit', some more 'well lit' than others, but 'lit' nonetheless. I spent a couple years on temporary assignment to the USAF Special Operations command as Signals Exploitation (field) specialist with a secondary specialty as Linguist. Us 'killer geeks' would have about 120kgms of recording gears and one week's worth of rations, jumped in less than 1,000ft at night or swim ashore and buried ourselves in dirt and mud and let the tapes run.

In a winter training and exercise with the ROK Marines, now that is one bunch of badass mofos, I deduced from the tapes the amount of generators Osan AFB uses to start aircrafts based upon unique signals created by the generators. We analysts missed four generators and one of them was disqualified because it was packaged to ship back to manufacturor. Handhelds, aka 'bricks' because each radio is shaped very much like a brick, that are used for communication by maintainers, can be analyzed. We do not need to record the actual conversations, just the amount of transmission bursts and average that data over time to have a good estimate of how many aircrafts are on a base and how much work are there to keep them flying. With no need to record conversations, we can afford to run the tapes slower, therefore more data. I could go on and on.

Do you think you are dealing with amateurs here? How do you think Iraq's defenses were so easily overwhelmed? I do not believe that it will be a 'walk in the park' against China as you think I so believe. But based from my experience, and I was in post Saddam Kuwait collecting Soviet junks, if there is a shooting war between the US and China, have no doubt we ALREADY have your coastal missile batteries, ports, air bases and troop garrisons electronically mapped. There is a percentage threshold of electronic data a base generate that will flag the place as candidate for destruction and do not come back with a counter-argument that such data can be so easily faked. The reason why guys like me were asked to do this is precisely because of our experience in aviation maintenance or ship maintenance or tank maintenance for that matter. We can tell when the data is suspect.

Now thats a simple effective solution.
Provided that US will not directly hit our installations...bcz of international treaties but detecting them is our first priority...u can very much observe the pressure that our army is facing right now; not because they let Abbottabad operation let happen but they were unaware of it.

Don't view the US as omnipotent...

It would have been much cheaper simply to hit the compound with cruise missiles or normal air power like they are doing in Libya.

The facts of the matter is that they are using unmanned drones and semi stealth aircraft to avoid a confrontation with the Pakistani military.

You say you can't shoot down their drones... I say that they will not take down any defence infrastructure you set up for the similar reasons.

The reason why guys like me were asked to do this is precisely because of our experience in aviation maintenance or ship maintenance or tank maintenance for that matter. We can tell when the data is suspect.

You can electronically map all sorts of things, but there is a huge difference between Iraq and China. The Chinese are more likely to use the Soviet equipment the way it was intended... mobile.
An electronic map of where things are right now is nice, but if everything starts moving during a period of confrontation then the value of that map rapidly falls to zero no matter how detailed it is.

A map showing activity during peacetime can be used to compare with its current state to determine whether the defences are on a war footing, but having a map of where all their stuff is is only one piece of the puzzle.

Having a SEAL knee deep in mud for 3 days near an enemy airfield might tell you they have 16 flights per day, but an AWACs can tell you the same thing too.


BTW Russia has sold several Puma systems to China, and I also think the high altitude Berkut might be useful to Pakistan too. Both can be used instead of a geostationary satellite to bring better communications to the mountains. You will be able to keep tabs on who is talking to whom as well.
A few Puma systems carrying radar and Electro optics for all weather surveillance... operating for 25 days at a time and operates at altitudes of up to 5,000m but being tethered they are not really viable replacements for UCAVs.
The Berkut is a high altitude airship designed to operate at high altitude (20-23km up) for up to 4 months at a time with a 1.2 ton payload.
Both could carry surveillance optics and radar equipment along with electronic relay equipment.

As an alternative for satellites the Berkut is much cheaper and every 4 months you can change the hardware for different purposes or to upgrade it, which you can' do with a satellite.

Berkut: http://rosaerosystems.com/projects/obj687

Puma: http://rosaerosystems.com/aero/obj16

Yeah we know how the U.S. 'evaded' Pakistani defenses during the Osama raid.......

General Kiani bent over, dropped his pants, and held that jar of vaseline up high, before the donkeykong ploughed right in his fun-hole!

Thats fukkin it!

We all know what will happen now....bitching and moaning by pakistan for 2 days.......then they will reopen the NATO supply lines, and give $500 to each deceased serviceman's family......and swallow the load as usual.....Fuk*** pathetic country. Sunni muslim countries are highly unreliable, and run by crooked politicians only subservient to the West. Just wait and see how that country disintegrates.

NATO helicopters kill troops in Pakistan

(CNN) -- NATO helicopters opened fire on two Pakistani military checkpoints near the border with Afghanistan early Saturday, killing 24 soldiers, the Pakistani foreign ministry and military said Saturday in a statement.

Earlier, a provincial governor had put the death toll at 26.

At least 14 soldiers were wounded in the attack in the Mohmand Agency area, said Syed Masood Kausar, governor of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Mohmand Agency is one of seven districts of the volatile region bordering Afghanistan.

"It's a huge incident," he told reporters in Islamabad.

Many of the injured are in critical condition, military officials said. The officials did not want to be identified because they are not allowed to talk to the media.

A senior NATO official said an investigation was under way into an operation that was going on against insurgents who were in the area at the time.

"We don't know a lot right now and the investigation is ongoing," said the official, who did not want to be identified during an ongoing investigation. "I cannot confirm that it was helicopters, but close air support was involved in an operation."

The official added, "It is as yet uncertain if NATO crossed the border. That's part of what the investigation is meant to determine --the facts of what happened."

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called an emergency meeting of military services chiefs to formulate his country's response, his spokesman said. The Defense Committee of the Cabinet was to meet later Saturday.

In a statement, Gilani said he "strongly condemned the NATO/ISAF attack on the Pakistani" checkpoint. ISAF refers to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which is largely composed of U.S. forces.

The matter is being taken up by the Foreign Ministry "in the strongest possible terms" with NATO and the United States, the statement from his office said.

NATO's commander in Afghanistan said he is committed to a thorough investigation.

"This incident has my highest personal attention and my commitment to thoroughly investigate it to determine the facts," Marine Gen. John R. Allen said Saturday.

He also offered his "sincere and personal heartfelt condolences" to the families of any Pakistan Security Forces members killed or injured.

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, said: "I regret the loss of life of any Pakistani servicemen, and pledge that the United States will work closely with Pakistan to investigate this incident."

The incident is likely to damage already strained relations between Pakistan and the United States.

Pakistan closed NATO's two supply routes into Afghanistan Saturday in response to the attack, Pakistani military and intelligence officials said.

NATO trucks have used the routes, in Khyber Agency and Balochistan, to supply U.S. and international forces fighting in Afghanistan.

About 50 containers and trucks carrying supplies for NATO were stopped at the town of Jamrud in Khyber Agency on Saturday morning, said Jamil Khan, a senior government official in Khyber Agency, bordering Afghanistan.

They were ordered to turn back toward Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, he said.

A second route from Pakistan into Afghanistan, the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan province, had been open to NATO supply trucks earlier Saturday but was shut in the afternoon, the military and intelligence officials said.

Roughly 40% of nonlethal NATO supplies and fuel go through Pakistan, with hundreds of supply trucks using the two routes into Afghanistan.

About 130,000 troops are deployed in Afghanistan with ISAF, 90,000 of them American, according to NATO figures.

Pakistani politicians responded angrily to the incident in Mohmand.

"This is the time to be united as a nation and to punch NATO with a fist," said Ahmed Khan Bahadur, a provincial lawmaker from the Awami National Party, the ruling party of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. "NATO could never dare if we were united."

Former international cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, condemned the incident and said it was time for Pakistan to pull out of the U.S.-led "war on terror."

The incident could be the deadliest for Pakistani soldiers involving NATO since a U.S. airstrike in June 2008, which Pakistan said killed 11 of its forces who were cooperating with the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

That airstrike, also in Mohmand Agency, prompted the government in Islamabad to summon the U.S. ambassador and lodge an official protest.

NATO's Allen had met Thursday with the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani military said.

"The visiting dignitary remained with him for some time and discussed measures concerning coordination, communication and procedures between Pakistan army, ISAF and Afghan army, aimed at enhancing border control on both sides," a Pakistani military statement said.

Meanwhile, a commander of Afghanistan's eastern border police said an operation in the area bordering Mohmand Agency on Friday night killed 10 insurgents.

"Last night, there was an operation there inside Afghanistan," he said. "Pakistani and Afghan Taliban have got a broad presence there as there are forests and difficult terrain. That's why there was an operation."

The military activity was in Afghanistan's Kunar province, he said, adding he was unaware of any NATO attacks on the other side of the border.

CNN's Reza Sayah and Nasir Habib in Islamabad contributed to this report.

I suspect the result will be some guy in an AWACS somewhere will be fired, and the US will exert pressure for everything to go back to the way it was before the attack.

As far as the Americans are concerned they probably just killed more Al quada supporters in this attack than they have all month...

Interesting that CNN isn't giving the rest of the story: whoever the shooter was, he/she/it took fire and asked permission to fire back. Permission was granted, and what a suprise, the shooting stopped. Trying to dig up where I heard that yesterday.

Guests on Pakistani territory should take shots fired as a request to leave... not permission to fire back.

GarryB wrote:Guests on Pakistani territory should take shots fired as a request to leave... not permission to fire back.

Whatever you think of the current situation, Pakistan is clearly part of the problem and refusing to police itself. Hence, the bombings. Which they are utterly powerless to stop.

Half the problem is that the region we are talking about is not really controlled by Pakistan.

The main problem is that Pakistan needs to decide which side it is on and stick to it.

The US is not helping by letting the CIA fly UCAVs over Pakistan and killing people.

I rather doubt the US would tolerate any country doing that to them.

Pakistan needs to decide whether it likes what is currently happening in return for aide from the US, or whether it would be better off cutting all ties including aide from the US.

For the US I am sure there are plenty of businessmen who are eyeing the billion plus potential wearer of jeans (and makers of jeans of course) and wondering why the US is so friendly with Pakistan when democratic India is right next door and a good potential rival to play off against China.

Apart from weapon sales Russia and India are not really very well integrated culturally or socially.

Kerry Praises Pakistan's Fight Against Militant Groups

Five Alleged Peshawar School Attack Suspects Arrested in Afghanistan

Five suspects in deadly attack on military school in the Peshawar, Pakistan, were arrested in Afghanistan.

MOSCOW, January 14 (Sputnik) — Five people were arrested in Afghanistan for their alleged involvement in the deadly attack on a military school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar in December, Pakistani television channel GEO TV reported.

The individuals arrested all originate from Pakistan. They are being suspected of planning and coordinating the terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of almost 150 people, mostly children, according to GEO TV.

Afghan security forces were acting basing on the information received from their Pakistani colleagues. Afghan authorities have already informed Pakistan about the arrest. Further investigation is underway, GEO TV reported.

Several more suspects were arrested in Pakistan in December. They were accused of "facilitating" the attacks, according to Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. The number and identities of the suspects were not disclosed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the massacre, saying that it was in response to army operations launched against the group in Pakistan's northwestern region of Waziristan. After the attack, Pakistan stepped up military operations against rebel groups in the country's northwest and lifted a moratorium on the death penalty, in place since 2008.

The Taliban group, formed in the 1990s, is seeking to establish sharia law in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The group is known for its terrorist attacks against authorities and civilians in both countries.

Helicopter With 11 Foreigners Crashes on School in Pakistan, 6 Fatalities

Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for downing a military helicopter, killing six people, including ambassadors of Norway, Philippines, wives of Malaysian and Indonesian ambassadors and two pilots, and say Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was their target.

The ambassadors of Norway and the Philippines, Leif H. Larsen and Domingo D. Lucenario Jr were among six people killed Friday when the helicopter carrying them crashed into a school in northern Pakistan, Major-General Asim Bajwa said in his tweet.

Five people have been injured, including ambassadors of Poland and the Netherlands.

The convoy of three helicopters was carrying a delegation of foreign diplomats and their aides to Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan territory, which is part of the disputed Kashmir region.

One of the helicopters crashed on a school in northern Pakistan.

"The helicopter was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile, killing pilots and many foreign ambassadors," AFP quotes an Urdu-language statement emailed by Taliban main spokesman Muhammad Khorasani as saying.

"A special group of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had prepared a special plan to target Nawaz Sharif during his visit but he survived because he was travelling in another helicopter," Khorasani added.

Officials have not yet commented on the Taliban claim. The ministry of defense issued a statement saying it was investigating the cause of the crash.

The nationalities of the foreigners are currently being investigated.

“It was a diplomatic trip with members of 37 countries in total,” the media is quoting one of the passengers as saying, without disclosing his name, addding that the school had caught fire after the crash.

“We have been told to send in as many ambulances as we can because the situation there is ‘urgent’,” said a senior official.

The injured were being air lifted to a military hospital in Gilgit, the region’s administrative capital, some 50km to the south-west, added another senior local police official.

An earlier statement by Sharif's office had said that the prime minister was on a plane, not helicopter, en route to the Gilgit area at the time of the attack, but turned back to Islamabad after news of the crash broke.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150508/1021859628.html#ixzz3ZY7F1EMB

Pakistani Air Strikes Kill Dozens of Taliban Militants in Tribal Area

At least 65 Taliban militants were killed and their ammunition dump destroyed by two separate air strikes in Pakistan’s lawless northwest, according to the country’s military sources.

The first of the two attacks occurred in Taliban hideouts in the Gharlamai and Shawal areas of the North Waziristan tribal region, along the Afghan border on Monday. According to the Associated Press, around 50 militants were killed by the air strikes, and their ammunition destroyed.

"At least 50 terrorists were killed in precise air strikes in Shawal and Gharlamai this afternoon," a military statement read. "There are reports that terrorists’ infrastructure, including their ammunition dump, is badly damaged."

An additional attack on the militant group was reported in the northwestern Khyber region, also bordering Afghanistan. Citing military sources, Pakistan’s Ary News reported that 15 militants were killed by the air strike, bringing the total up to 65 on Monday.

The air strikes are part of the Pakistan Army’s renewed offensive against Taliban insurgents in the restive Waziristan region, which began in 2014. At the time, the government vowed to step up its efforts against the group after a militant attack on a school in December killed 150 people, most of whom were children.

The recent air strikes come in the wake of a twin suicide attack in the densely-populated Punjab province on Sunday. The attack targeted a building in the Shadi Khan village, and claimed the lives of at least 18 people, including Punjab Home Minister Shuja Khanzada.

Khanzada, a vocal supporter of the Pakistan army’s offensive against Taliban militants, was holding a public meeting with his constituents when two suspected suicide attackers struck the building. Jamatul Ahrar, a group linked to the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attacks, and said they were in response to the death of Malik Ishaq, leader of an al-Qaeda affiliated group, at the hands of Pakistani police.

Pakistan has been fighting a homegrown Taliban insurgency for over a decade, and according to military officials, more than 2,800 Taliban militants have been killed since the beginning of the renewed offensive last year.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150818/1025858283.html#ixzz3j7xLA2YL