Pak jets, US drones pound militants; 50 killed

The Pakistani military said its jets killed 35 suspected militants yesterday as part of an anti-Taliban offensive hours after US drones attacked another area nearby and killed up to 20 people.
The violence in Pakistan comes as the United States struggles to bring stability to neighbouring Afghanistan before most of its forces pull out after 12 years of inconclusive war.
Taliban and other al Qaeda-linked fighters battling in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have for years mingled in strongholds in Pakistan's ungoverned, ethnic Pashtun border lands but there has been little coordination in confronting them between US-led forces in Afghanistan and their Pakistani allies.
Yesterday, Pakistani jets killed 35 suspected militants in the Shawal valley, a remote militant stronghold on the Pakistani side of the border opposite Afghanistan's Paktika, Pakistani military officials said.
Hours earlier, US drone aircraft attacked militants in Datta Khel, a town in North Waziristan region near the border. Resident Malik Wakil Khan, said 18 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a compound.
Pakistani security officials gave tolls of from 15 to 20 killed.
Pakistan has promised to eradicate all militants from North Waziristan, a stark departure from a traditional policy of tolerating some militants that do not attack the Pakistani state.
More than half a million civilians were ordered to leave their homes before ground operations started. Residents say most militants left too. Some of the militants are believed to have gone to ground in Pakistan's cities, while others have apparently fanned out into remote mountains and forests in areas such as the Shawal Valley.