By Aamir Latif

ISLAMABAD

Pakistani security forces killed 57 suspected militants in airstrikes and arrested two ‘key’ Taliban militants Wednesday a day after terrorists slew over 100 children in a Peshawar school attack.

According to Pakistan’s military media wing, fighter jets carried out 20 airstrikes in northwestern Khyber tribal agency that killed 57 suspected militants and injured several others.

The Pakistan army believes the agency’s remote Tirah valley near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border serves as a new bastion of fleeing militants from North Waziristan, where a large-scale operation against terrorists is underway since June 15.

Also Wednesday, police in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi arrested two suspected militants alleged to be involved in the planning of the Peshawar attacks.

Senior police officer Khurram Waris said the suspected militants were arrested after an alleged gunbattle in the city’s western Manghopir area. Waris added that the detained men belonged to the same Pakistani Taliban group that had claimed the Peshawar school massacre.

The Pakistani Taliban’s Khurrasani group, led by Umer Khalid Khurrsani, is said to be based in Mohmand tribal agency, one of the seven semiautonomous tribal regions of Pakistan. The group reportedly claimed the Peshawar attack in phone calls to local media Tuesday.

Earlier Wednesday, Pakistan’s main opposition party called off its nationwide protests aimed at bringing down Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government.

Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan said it was calling off its over four-month long protest against alleged electoral fraud in 2013 elections outside the parliament in the capital Islamabad because of the Peshawar tragedy.

“I believe we have to end it because it is in the national interest,” the former cricketer said.

But Khan also warned that if his demand for an independent judicial commission to investigate the electoral fraud was not formed “as soon as possible,” his party would again take to the streets.

“I make this clear to the government that if it does not constitute the judicial commission in days to come, we will be again in the streets,” Khan said.

Khan’s ally and Canada-based cleric Dr. Tahirul Qadri, who had joined Khan’s sit-in along with his supporters on Aug. 15, ended his sit-in last month.

Sharif welcomed Khan’s announcement and assured him that his party’s reservations over the elections would be addressed.

Mass funerals, prayers, protests and candlelit vigils were held across Pakistan as the country mourned the deaths of 141 people, mostly young students, killed in the siege of an army-run school in Peshawar city Tuesday.

The bodies of dozens of students were transported to their hometowns Wednesday in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where thousands attended the funeral prayers.

The national flag flew at half-mast on all state-owned buildings, while several cities and towns remained shut in response to a government-designated three-day mourning period.

Peshawar is the fourth largest city of Pakistan and the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

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