LANDI KOTAL: At least five suspected militants were killed when fighter jets of the Pakistan Air Force pounded their hideouts in the Tirah valley in Khyber Agency on Wednesday.

Military sources said that following a tip-off about the presence of militants in the region, the fighter jets carried out the strikes in the forested area of Rajgal, which is close to the Afghan border.

They said that five suspected militants were killed and at least three of their hideouts destroyed in the strikes. However, the claims could not be independently verified because media have no access to the remote area.

Officials of the political administration in Landi Kotal said a majority of the people of the Loe Shalman area who had been forced to vacate their houses begun returning home after calm returned to the border areas.

They said there had been no artillery shelling since Monday and people displaced from Shalman Khula, Narai, Samsai and Sheen Pokh begun returning to their neighbourhoods.

The officials had said on Tuesday that as many as 180 families had been declared displaced after they had been directed to vacate their houses on Saturday.

Meanwhile, authorities at the Torkham border crossing deported at least 13 Afghan nationals to Afghanistan.

The officials said they were caught while trying to enter Pakistan without legal travel documents.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2017