Islamabad, June 19 (IANS): At least 20 terrorists were killed during airstrikes in a tribal agency of Pakistan on Friday, said an official statement.

Around 18 terrorists were also wounded in the airstrikes in Khyber Agency, according to the statement by Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR), the mouthpiece of the military.

The precise aerial strikes came amid the ongoing Khyber-2 operation launched by the army in the tribal region and are part of the military's stepped-up efforts since a militant attack in December 2014 killed over 140 people, mostly children, at Peshawar's Army Public School.

The Peshawar incident came months after the army launched Zarb-e-Azb, a grand operation in the North Waziristan tribal region, following a Taliban-claimed attack on the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.

Khyber is one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous regions governed by tribal laws and lies near the Afghan border. The region was known to be a stronghold of militants belonging to the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and an allied group called Lashkar-e-Islam.