Air strikes kill 15 Taliban in Pakistan: officials

Air strikes killed 15 Taliban in restive Pakistani northwestern tribal areas on Sunday, where militants beheaded three tribesmen accusing them of spying for the United States. Pakistan's rugged tribal regions have been wracked by violence since becoming a stronghold for hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels who fled across the border to escape the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Separately, a bomb targeting a senior police official killed three people in southwestern Baluchistan province and another bomb damaged an oil tanker carrying fuel for NATO forces stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan. Five of the militants were killed in air strikes on a village in Orakzai tribal district, where militants fleeing a military operation in South Waziristan tribal district have taken refuge. "Two jet fighters carried out air strikes at a militant hideout at Ghiljo. Five militants were killed," a senior paramilitary official told AFP. In a second air strike in Kurram, another tribal district, 10 militants were killed, the official and local administration chief Fazal Qadir said. The death toll could not be verified by independent sources as the area is under military operations. In North Waziristan, another tribal district and known as a hot bed of Taliban, militants Sunday beheaded three tribesmen they accused of spying for US forces stationed across the border in Afghanistan.