Pakistan says its airstrikes have killed 31 militants and a suspected U.S. drone strike another seven insurgents in the tribal regions along the Afghan border.
Islamabad said its air force destroyed four terrorist hideouts and a suicide bomber training center in the Tirrah Valley of the Khyber tribal district. Pakistan has been targeting Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam militants in the region since October.
Pakistan has stepped up counter-militancy army operations in tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan since a militant raid against an army-run school in Peshawar on December 16 killed 150 people, almost all of them children.
Local intelligence officials say the drone fired two missiles that struck a militant compound in the mountainous Datta Khail area near the Afghan border.
They say the suspected hideout was being used by Uzbek militants linked to a pro-al-Qaida Pakistani commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
Sunday's drone strike is the first in the new year.
