LANDI KOTAL: A boy was killed and three others were injured when military helicopters shelled a suspected hideout of the banned Lashkar-i-Islam outfit in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency on Monday.

(According to AFP, the helicopters killed 20 militants and destroyed four hideouts, including a training centre for suicide bombers in Tirah valley, 35km southwest of Landi Kotal.

‘Military helicopters shelled militant hideouts in the afternoon, killing 20 rebels and destroying four of their hideouts,’ a spokesman for the Frontier Corps, Major Fazal-ur-Rehman, said, adding that the air strikes were ordered after an intelligence tip-off.

Death tolls officially released are impossible to confirm in areas that are remote and largely cut off from independent media coverage.)

Sources said that three helicopters shelled Daras Jumat, a mosque in Akakhel area, near Bara, killing the boy and injuring three others. A vehicle and two shops were destroyed.

The mosque, believed to be a stronghold of Lashkar-i-Islam, was damaged. "ashkar sources said their organisation had nothing to do with the mosque.