KALAYA: Gunship helicopters pounded two training centres of militants in Mamozai area of the Upper Orakzai Agency on Sunday, killing 37 militants and causing partial damage to the buildings.

“At least 37 militants, including a commander and 12 would-be suicide bombers, were killed in the attack on their hideouts,” an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman said. Sources said three gunship helicopters appeared in the sky at 2:10 pm and started shelling on the training centres in Mamozai area. The shelling continued for half an hour. The centres in



Arghanju and Jabba in the past used to be seminaries run by Maulana Abdul Majeed and Maulana Maqbool, where students were imparted Islamic education. But the militants occupied them last year and, after expelling the seminary administrators and students, used them as their base camps for training and imprisonment purposes.

Reportedly, the militants, who had occupied the Madrassas in Mamozai area, had links with Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.The sources said that two gunship helicopters again arrived at 4:25 pm and shelled the hideouts of militants in Jabba and Kotani areas where the house of a local commander Abdus Salam was destroyed. It was reported that the house was being used as a camp by the militants.

Taliban commander Noor Jamal rejected the claim of the ISPR, saying that no militant was killed in the shelling carried out by the gunship helicopters. “No one was killed in the attack and only the wall of a Madrassa was partially damaged,” he told The News from an undisclosed location.

Meanwhile, about 32 victims of the suicide attack on the Orakzai tribal Jirga were laid to rest on Sunday as the death toll rose to 110. Meanwhile, 125 seriously injured persons are under treatment in different hospitals of the Orakzai Agency, Hangu and Kohat, while some of them have been shifted to hospitals in Peshawar. The tribesmen have vowed to take revenge from those who carried out the deadly attack. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the brutal suicide attack at the Jirga.