Peshawar, Pakistan: Eleven people were killed in drone strikes in northern Pakistan on Saturday launched by the army against the Taliban, who had killed seven soldiers a day earlier, police told AFP.
Three drone strikes were carried out on Friday night in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity, targeting "Pakistani Taliban hideouts" in the region bordering Afghanistan where violence has erupted in recent months.
"It was only this morning that we learned that two women and three children were among the victims," he said.
"In protest, local residents placed the bodies of the victims on the road", saying that they were "innocent civilians" killed in the strikes, he added.
Another police source said that "an investigation is under way to establish whether Taliban fighters were indeed present at the sites at the time of the attack".
"It is too early to say whether the places affected were civilian areas or whether they were sheltering Taliban," he added.
The Pakistani Taliban -- known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) -- announced in mid-March a "spring campaign" against security forces, threatening "ambushes, targeted attacks, suicide attacks and strikes".
The TTP has since claimed responsibility for around 100 attacks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
In the same province, "armed Taliban" fighters hiding in a house shot and killed seven soldiers who were carrying out an operation against them, a police source said on Saturday.
During the shoot-out, which lasted several hours, the army deployed helicopter gunships, killing eight Taliban, while six other soldiers were wounded, according to the source.
