It’s payback time: Army kills 57 terrorists in Tirah

Initial reports reveal Peshawar attack was planned in first week of Dec by Mullah Fazlullah

Pakistan Army struck back at Islamist terrorists on Wednesday evening by killing at least 57 militants in Khyber Agency’s Tirah Valley in airstrikes, as police investigators revealed that the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar had been planned in the first week of December in an area close to the Pak-Afghan border.

Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Asim Bajwa said in a tweet that the army had conducted 20 strikes using dynamic targeting as Army chief General Raheel Sharif personally monitored the operation. He said that ground troops had also started advancing in the lawless tribal region to eliminate terrorists holed up in compounds and mountains.

Meanwhile sources told Pakistan Today that the attack in Peshawar, which took the lives of 144 people including 132 children, had been planned in the first week of December in an area near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Counter-Terrorism Department in its initial investigation report revealed that the attack had been planned during a meeting of the TTP central leadership headed by TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah along with militants from Bajaur, Mohmand and Orakzai agencies in the first week of December.

According to the document, seven suicide bombers were trained for this purpose at Sheen Drang Markaz in Bara, Khyber Agency. The investigation report identified the seven suicide bombers as Abuzar, Umar, Imran, Yousaf, Uzair, Qari and Chamnay.