Pakistani warplanes kill six Taliban militants

AFP, Peshawar, Pakistan

Pakistani warplanes Saturday pounded two Taliban training centres, killing six men under the command of an important local militant in a lawless tribal area, officials said.
The airstrike took place in Orakzai tribal agency, a stronghold of Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud's deputy Hakim Ullah.
"The airstrike destroyed two training centres for militants in Orakzai," a paramilitary spokesman told AFP.
Two security officials said that at least six militants had died. "Six militants of Hakim Ullah group have been killed in the airstrike," a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to journalists.
Taliban militants had claimed the shooting down of a military helicopter in Orakzai on July 3, which killed 26 security personnel.
Pakistan has also carried out air strikes against Mehsud's hideouts in South Waziristan, with commanders vowing to hunt down the warlord's militant network in the remote northwest region known as a base for Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels.
Washington alleges Islamist fighters hide out in the mountains near the Afghan border, plotting attacks on Western targets and crossing the porous frontier to attack foreign troops based in Afghanistan.
Mehsud has a five million dollar reward on his head offered by the United States, and a bounty of 615,000 dollars in Pakistan for allegedly masterminding multiple deadly bombings in the last two years.
About 2,000 people have died in Islamist bombings across the country since July 2007, when government forces besieged a radical mosque in Islamabad.