PESHAWAR, Sept 5: Army troops on Friday concluded their manoeuvring after two days in the Bannu district, officials said.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn by telephone that the military had finished its exercises. The troops later flew away aboard helicopters to unknown destinations.

“All choppers vacated the Bannu airport at around 2pm and the troops went back,” the official said. However, a spokesman for ISPR here did not offer any comments regarding the troops movement in the region close to the Afghan border.

Troops from the Baloch regiment and Special Services Group units had landed at the Bannu airport on Wednesday afternoon, some 200 kilometres south of Peshawar.

Several units of Frontier Corps also took part in the exercises which were jointly conducted in the Frontier Region Bannu and the border areas of the North and South Waziristan Agencies. More than 35 helicopters of Pakistan army were used in the movement.

Meanwhile, district police officials denied arrest of civilians in Bannu during the army movement. He said the local police had arrested some locals in minor cases, “but that should not be linked with the military movement.”

AFP adds: Military helicopters circled mountainous terrain bordering Afghanistan on Friday in an operation aimed at keeping out Taliban fugitives, a senior security source said.

Residents saw about 15 helicopters flying in a 40-kilometre stretch between Bannu and the Kohat airbase.

The army has also commandeered the disused Bannu airstrip, where about 10 military helicopters have appeared, and troops have set up a security cordon in a four-kilometre radius.

“No civilian is allowed near the airport,” a local resident, who did not want to be named, told AFP.

Security sources said the exercise was aimed at securing the area, which adjoins Pakistan’s semi-autonomous regions of North and South Waziristan, opposite the troubled Afghan provinces of Paktika and Khost.

“The exercise is aimed at pre-empting any intrusion of Taliban into the Pakistani territory,” a senior security source said.