ISLAMABAD: At least 34 suspected militants were killed in airstrikes conducted by military jets in Khyber tribal regions Tirah Valley area, according to a statement issued by the army on Wednesday.

Pakistan Air Force jets bombed several suspected militant hideouts in the remote Tirah Valley area of Khyber tribal region, an army statement said.

Khyber is one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous regions governed by tribal laws and lies near the Afghan border.

Tirah valley is home to militants from the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and an allied group called Lashkar-i-Islam.

Read: Lashkar-i-Islam merges into TTP

The Taliban and its allies have been waging an insurgency for more than a decade in Pakistan, seeking to overthrow the government and install their own brand of fundamentalist Islamic rule.

The attacks have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis, including 17 killed on Sunday in a pair of suicide attacks on churches in the eastern city of Lahore.

Also read: 15 killed in Taliban attack on Lahore churches

The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the TTP had claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The airstrikes come amid the ongoing Khyber- One operation launched by the military in Khyber tribal region and are part of the military's stepped-up efforts since a militant attack in December killed 150 people, mostly children, at an army-run school in northwestern Peshawar city.

Militants have fled to various other tribal regions, including the Tirah Valley that borders Afghanistan, where they operate on both sides of the border.

Pakistan military had launched a grand operation in North Waziristan tribal region, named Zarb-i-Azb, in June 2014 following a Taliban-claimed attack on Karachi International Airport.