By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
The Pakistani army killed 91 militants in four separate clashes across Pakistan on Friday, according to the army's media wing.
The Inter-Services Public Relations said that a ground operation targeted militant hideouts in the remote northwestern Tirah valley, located near the Afghanistan border.
The operation resulted in 49 militants being killed; three Pakistani army soldiers were also injured.
Security forces also launched an operation in the southwestern province of Baluchistan and claimed to have killed eight militants.
A senior security official told The Anadolu Agency, on condition of anonymity, that militants loyal to the Pakistani Taliban were killed in clashes in Ziarat town, located 125 kilometers from the state capital, Quetta.
An attack on a security check point in the northwestern Kurram agency left 30 militants dead. A further four militants were killed in clashes with security forces in Bara town in the northwestern Khyber agency.
The four separate clashes in northwest and southwest Pakistan meant that Friday’s death toll was 91.
The fresh casualties push the Pakistani Taliban's death toll to over 100 in the three days after their brutal attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The attack, which shook Pakistan and made global headlines, killed 141 people -- 132 of whom were children.
Khyber agency, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan, is believed to be the new bastion of Pakistani Taliban militants.
They were forced to flee their former stronghold in North Waziristan due to a large-scale military operation launched in the mountainous northwestern region on June 15.
Over 1,600 militants and 100 soldiers have been killed in air strikes and clashes between the Pakistani army and the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency since June 15.
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