Day after deadly raid on air base, Pakistan bombs Taliban hideouts killing 16 militants

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Saturday’s air force raids targeted militant bases in the Tirah Valley, which straddles the Afghan border and is a main smuggling route between the two countries, two Pakistani security officials said.

“All those killed in the bombing were Pakistani militants,” said one security official in the northwestern city of Peshawar. On Friday, 13 gunmen stormed the Badaber air base, about 10 km (6 miles) south of Peshawar in an attack, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman said, was retaliation for bombing raids on their bases along the Afghan border.

Police said they picked up around 50 residents living near the base on suspicion of helping the militants organise the attack. Shafqat Malik, head of the Peshawar bomb squad, said the attackers carried enough firepower to occupy the base, but that some of their weapons had malfunctioned. Each man had an assault rifle, two improvised explosive devices, and several rocket propelled grenades, but some of the grenades misfired, he said.

“Their mission was occupation of the air base,” he said. For decades Pakistan nurtured Islamist militants as allies against old rival India, and to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

For years Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded accusations of not doing enough to stamp out insurgents on either side of their long, porous border.