Islamabad: Pakistan’s military said 33 terrorists were killed in air strikes on Monday in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
An ongoing military offensive in North Waziristan is now in its fifth month and according to official figures more than 1,000 militants, including foreigners, have been killed so far.
In the fresh bombing raids by jets, 18 terrorists were killed in the Dattakhel area of the tribal region in the morning and 15 were eliminated in Garlamai area by gunship helicopters.
The military has not given a time frame for the completion of the offensive, but federal minister Abdul Qadir Baloch told a foreign radio last week he wishes that it would be over in two or three months.
The minister, who is in charge of states and frontier regions affairs, said major infrastructure had been ruined in North Waziristan, posing a daunting and expensive task to rebuild it.
Baloch said Pakistan was expected to launch soon an appeal soon to seek international assistance for reconstruction in North Waziristan.
The anti-terror war in North Waziristan has displaced around 1 million people, who left their homes and are mostly living in camps in northwestern Khyber Pakthtunkhwa province, awaiting resettlement in their native areas.
The government told the National Assembly here on Monday that over 48 billion Pakistan rupees (Dh1.7 billion) were spent on the war against terror during the last five years.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in a written statement said the expenditure include over Rs23.8 billion in Islamabad Capital Territory, over Rs3 billion in federally administered tribal areas and over Rs8.5 billion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Besides, over Rs7 billion was spent by Rangers Punjab and over Rs1.6 billion by Balochistan.
