ISLAMABAD: Terrorists targeted a military camp in North Waziristan tribal region using mortar fires and rockets in retaliation to yesterday's aristrikes conducted by the military in the region, a spokesman of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

A local commanding officer of the Pakistan Army responded effectively to the attack on a military camp in Machis Factory village near Miramshah.

Soldiers wounded in an encounter in Mirali area a day earlier were shifted to Combine Military Hospital in Peshawar, the statement further said.

The spokesman also made it clear that no air strikes were carried out in North Waziristan today.

Earlier security sources had claimed that, air strikes targeting suspected militant hideouts continued in parts of the North Waziristan tribal region for a second day on Thursday.

They claimed that the fresh offensive had destroyed a number of insurgent bases and had killed several insurgents.

Moreover, official sources claimed that following the airstrikes in different parts of the tribal region, ground troops had entered North Waziristan on Thursday in the Machis Factory area on the outskirts of Miramshah.

Since yesterday, at least 73 suspected local and foreign militants have been killed in a series of air strikes on hideouts and bases in North Waziristan and in a later clash following an attack on security personnel. An army major and three other security personnel died in that clash.

The targets of Wednesday’s air strikes were strongholds of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (Etim) — a militant outfit comprising largely Turkic-speaking militants from Uzbekistan and Uighurs from China’s north-western autonomous region of Xinjiang.

Following Wednesday’s strikes, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that the air attacks were in retaliation for the killing of “a large number of civilians and security forces personnel” by terrorists in Fata, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi.