ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's military launched airstrikes on five militant hideouts in a troubled tribal region near the border with Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 40 suspected fighters as part of an operation that began this summer.
In a statement, the military said "precise" airstrikes were carried out in Datta Khel, a Taliban stronghold in North Waziristan, where Pakistan launched a long-awaited offensive June 15. The region has long been home to local and foreign militants who carry out attacks in Pakistan and against NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The military said it also destroyed ammunition depots, and those killed included "foreigners," but it gave no details about the identity and nationality of those killed in the strikes.
Since launching the operation, the military says it has killed more than 1,000 local and foreign militants, while it lost more than 80 soldiers.
Pakistan is a key ally of the United States, but the country also is home to the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida, both of which have used North Waziristan as a base for carrying out attacks in neighboring Afghanistan for years. Pakistan and Afghanistan share a porous border, which is crossed by militants from both sides to use the neighboring country's soil as a safe haven.
The latest military strikes happened a day after a group of militants in Afghanistan attacked a Pakistani border post, leading to a fight that killed 11 insurgents and four soldiers.
On Wednesday, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it had lodged protest with Kabul over Tuesday's cross-border attack.
In a statement, it said about 100 insurgents had sneaked into Pakistan "from recently established sanctuaries" across the border but the attack was repulsed by Pakistan forces. It added that the bodies of three militants were left behind and four Pakistan soldiers were killed in the attack.
It did not explain whether the attack involved Afghan or Pakistani Taliban.
Pakistan and its military claim that Mullah Fazlullah, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, has been hiding in Afghanistan.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, as the group is formally known, is a loose network of local militant groups who want to overthrow the country's government in a bid to install their own harsh brand of Islamic law. They have killed thousands of civilians and security forces in their decade-old campaign of deadly bombings, shootings and other attacks.
After taking power last year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to resolve the matter through talks. But after Uzbek militants with the support of Pakistani Taliban attacked the country's main airport in the southern port city of Karachi, killing 26 people, he approved the military operation.
Since then, top militant leaders and their fighters have been on the run, and the military's powerful Gen. Raheel Sharif has said the country's security forces would hunt down the militants even in remote areas. The military said it has cleared almost all major towns and villages of militants, and about 80 percent of North Waziristan is now under its control.
The operation has displaced more than 800,000 residents, who are living either with relatives or at relief camps miles away from their homes.
In neighboring Afghanistan on Wednesday, a media group said an Afghan woman became the seventh journalist killed in the country so far this year, making 2014 the deadliest year for journalists there since the fall of the Taliban.
Palwasha Tokhi, who worked for Bayan Radio in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, was called out of her home purportedly to receive a wedding invitation from a visitor Tuesday night. Wedding invitations are typically delivered by hand in Afghanistan.
She was then stabbed to death by the visitor, who fled, said Hafizullah Majidid, the head of Bayan Radio. Tokhi had just returned to Afghanistan after earning her master's degree in Thailand.
The police in Mazar-i-Sharif could not be reached for comment on the case.
Tokhi became the fifth Afghan journalist killed this year, in addition to two foreign ones, according to data compiled by Nai, which trains and supports Afghan journalists. The year before, three journalists were killed in Afghanistan, and two in 2012.
"Since 2001, more than 40 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan, and none of the cases have been followed by the judicial system of Afghanistan," said Abdul Mujeeb Khelwatgar, executive director of Nai. "This has made all the people behind the killings and violence against journalists brave enough to think they could do anything against journalists."
Information for this article was contributed by Munir Ahmed of The Associated Press and by Rod Nordland and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times.
A Section on 09/18/2014