At least 42 militants were killed Saturday when Pakistani jet fighters bombed their meeting in a northwestern tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
The airstrike took place in the remote Tirrah valley of Khyber tribal district, they said.
"At least 42 militants of Lashkar-e-Islam were killed and two militant hideouts were also destroyed," Khyber administration chief Shafeerullah Wazir told AFP.
A military official and another tribal administration official confirmed the incident and death toll.
"The airstrike was launched on a tip-off that a meeting of the Laskhar-e-Islam group was going on in Tirrah," the military official told AFP.
Lashkar-e-Islam, which means Army of Islam, is a criminal homegrown Islamist group with ties to the Taliban that has stirred up trouble in Khyber and attacked NATO supply vehicles travelling through the area.
Copyright 2010 AFP South Asian Edition
