Pakistani war planes have carried out air strikes on suspected Taliban hideouts amid ground operations aimed at retaking the troubled northwestern Swat Valley.

Ground forces backed by helicopter gunships on Thursday targeted al-Qaeda- and Taliban-linked insurgents in the Khawazakhela area, about 25 kilometers north of the main town in Swat called Mingora.

Military sources reported that they managed to kill dozens of Taliban militants in Swat and its surrounding regions.

“We have orders to target militants’ hideouts and the writ of the government is to be established at any cost,” a local official said.

Pakistani military sources put at over 300 the number of insurgents killed since April 26 — when the anti-Taliban offensives began from the Lower Dir and Buner districts, located about 62 miles (100km) from the capital Islamabad.

Pakistan intensified its military operations after the Taliban turned a blind eye to government efforts to enter a peace deal with the militant group and announced plans to infiltrate into Islamabad and other major cities across the nuclear-armed country.

In another move expected to prompt a Taliban response, the eldest son of pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad, who mediated talks between the government and the insurgents, was killed in government air strikes on an area near a town in Lower Dir.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have planted countless landmines in populated Swat areas to stop civilians from fleeing the volatile region to nearby makeshift hospitals and refugee camps set up by the Red Cross.

Pakistan, which expects up to 500,000 people to be displaced in Swat, says the Taliban is using civilians as human shields. The situation in Swat is such that the Red Cross has warned that a major humanitarian crisis is looming on the horizon.

According to a UN official in Mardan, up to 60,000 displaced people have already registered at centers in the besieged town.

Sources in the volatile valley have revealed that most of the al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the troubled northwestern region are of Arab origin and have come from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

The revelation is in line with remarks made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a congressional hearing in which she explained how the US along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) created the Taliban in the 1980s to counter then Soviet influence in the country.

“And great, let them come from Saudi Arabia and other countries, importing their Wahhabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union,” Clinton said.

Moderate Sunni and Shia Muslims are of the belief that the Wahhabi Taliban ideology bears no resemblance with Islam and that the group was created by the world powers to fuel extremism and to encourage Islamophobia.

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 pushed Taliban militants across the border and into Pakistan. Ever since, the restive tribal belt between the two neighbors has become a scene of daily violence.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates during his recent visit to Riyadh reached out to Saudi officials — who according to Washington maintain close ties with al-Qaeda and Taliban elements — in an effort to pacify the situation in Pakistan.

The renewed tensions come as US President Barack Obama discussed the surge in militancy with his Pakistani and Afghan counterparts in Washington.