By Aamir Latif
ISLAMABAD
Militants have warned residents of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber tribal region not to evacuate their homes, despite an expected army operation.
Local residents told the Anadolu Agency that the Lashkar-e-Islam group broadcast a message on its own pirate radio station, threatening to "occupy their houses and blow them up."
It is being seen as an attempt to use local tribesmen as human shields after the army told militants in the Khyber town of Bara that it would launch a ground invasion if they did not surrender by Wednesday.
Army air strikes have targeted Lashkar-e-Islam hideouts in various parts of Khyber agency, killing more than 30 suspected militants in the past week.
More than 130 families from the Tirah valley, where the air strikes have been concentrated, have been forced to take refuge in nearby areas.
A senior security official told the Anadolu Agency, on condition of anonymity, that security forces are set for a ground invasion of the Bara and Jamrud towns, where militants had been hiding and attacking government forces.
The operation is an extension of the army's Zarb-e-Azab operation, launched on June 15 to push out militants operating in the nearby North Waziristan tribal area.
The army has claimed to have killed more than 1,300 militants loyal to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militant network since the operation began, though the figures cannot be independently verified.
Nearly 100 soldiers have also been killed in landmine blasts and clashes with the Taliban militants during the same period.
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