This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Pakistani military jets and helicopter gunships have attacked suspected militant hideouts near the Afghan border, killing 60 people, the army said.

The main target of the air strikes on Wednesday was Mir Ali, a town in the North Waziristan, the army said in a statement.

It said 60 suspected terrorists, including important local commanders as well as foreigners, were killed and a further 30 wounded in the strikes.

One resident said the army had also been using artillery fire since early morning. "We heard big bangs," said Saeedullah Khan. "I saw some houses flattened."

The army did not give more details on the key figures they said were killed.

The claims could not be independently verified. The area is off limits to foreign journalists.

The army said investigation into recent attacks against civilians and security forces had led it to the militant hideouts that were targeted.

Waziristan is part of Pakistan's tribal region, which is home to Taliban and foreign militants linked to al-Qaida who have been fighting the state for years, killing thousands of people.

Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has been pursuing a policy of negotiation with the Pakistani Taliban to end the decades of militant violence, but government efforts have not yielded any results so far.

A bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded on Wednesday outside an office of Pakistani paramilitary forces in the southern city of Karachi, wounding seven civilians, a police official said.