Jet fighters kill 30 militants in South Waziristan, says military

AFP - At least 30 militants were killed in an air strike by the Pakistani military on their hideout in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan on Saturday, the military said.
  
The attack took place in South Waziristan district where the military in October launched an air and ground offensive to flush out Taliban militants.
  
The "hideout in Shawal mountains was targeted after a tip off received that terrorists were hiding there," the military said in a statement.
  
The death toll could not be verified independently as the area is under military operations.
  
Pakistan's military is engaged in offensives against Islamist fighters across much of the northwest including tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a region branded by Washington the most dangerous place on Earth.
  
About 30,000 Pakistani troops poured into South Waziristan in mid-October to try to dismantle strongholds of the Taliban leadership, enraging militants who have responded with a surge of bombings and other attacks.
  
More than 3,000 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks by Islamist militants since July 2007.
  
Washington believes militant safe havens in Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border must be eliminated if Al-Qaeda is to be defeated and the eight-year war against the Taliban ended in neighbouring Afghanistan.
  
US Marines are leading a major offensive against a Taliban bastion in Helmand province, billed as the biggest since the 2001 US-led invasion and the first test of President Barack Obama's strategy to drive out the hardline militia and reassert government control.