WANA: At least 25 suspected militants were killed on Wednesday in air strikes carried out by military planes in Khyber Agency and Sanzela area of South Waziristan.

An ISPR statement issued late in night said that seven terrorist hideouts had also been destroyed in the attacks.

In Bannu, three suspected militants were killed in a clash with security forces in Janikhel area.

Meanwhile, police foiled an attempt to blow up a primary school in Kaki area of Bannu district.

Sources said the clash erupted when security personnel were conducting a search operation in the wake of Tuesday’s bomb attack on Malak Mawaz Khan, a local leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and an influential elder of Janikhel tribe.

He was assaulted while returning home from a meeting of a peace jirga in Frontier Region Bannu. He escaped unhurt in the blast in which his vehicle was damaged.

After the clash, official sources said, an injured militant was arrested and shifted to an unspecified place for interrogation.

Police thwarted a sabotage bid by defusing an improvised explosive device planted by terrorists at the main gate of a government school for boys in Kaki union council.

Police were informed by the watchman about the presence of a suspicious plastic canister at the school gate. Police reached to the school, cordoned it off and stopped students from entering the school building.

An official of the Bomb Disposal Unit said that the canister contained a home-made bomb.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2015

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