At least 30 men, women, and children were killed in airstrikes by the Pakistani Air Force in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday.
The attack took place at about 2 a.m., when Pakistani fighter jets struck Matre Dara village in the Tirah Valley with eight LS-6 bombs, causing a massive massacre. The victims of the attack included all civilians.
Local news sources report that numerous others were hurt, although the extent of their injuries is not clear.
Horrifying photos and videos from the scene depict bodies, some of whom are children, strewn about. Rescue workers are in the process of bringing out more bodies from under the rubble, and concerns about the number of dead increasing further are being raised.
There have been many counter-terror operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the past, and many of those have claimed civilian lives. Recently this year, Amnesty International pointed out that recurrent drone attacks in the province demonstrate a questionable lack of respect for human life.
"Pakistani authorities have not only failed to act to safeguard the lives and property of civilians in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which continues to pay the price of an increasing number of drone attacks in the province. The drone attack that killed one child last Friday is part of a frightening series of attacks that has increased since March this year," said Isabelle Lassee, Deputy Regional Director for South Asia at Amnesty International.
A total of 605 terror attacks have hit the province from January through August this year, killing at least 138 civilians and 79 Pakistani policemen, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police said. August saw 129 incidents alone, with six Pakistan Army and paramilitary Federal Constabulary personnel also killed.
In the wake of Operation Sindoor, in which nine principal terrorist hideouts in Pakistan and PoK were targeted and eliminated, outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) are said to be setting up new hideouts further inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, along the Afghan border. The terrain of the region, with mountains and proximity to Afghanistan, offers natural protection, and most hideouts have their origin in the anti-Soviet Afghan war of the 1980s and the US invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
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