The Pakistani military said that soldiers and militants battled Saturday in the country’s vast tribal region, with more than a dozen insurgents killed in airstrikes, with at least four soldiers slain in skirmishes and a key village seized by troops.

The fatalities come hours after Pakistani troops launched a massive ground offensive backed up by air power targeting the Taliban in South Waziristan, a refuge and a power base for insurgents operating in Pakistan and along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

The United Nations said that the highly anticipated offensive, which comes after a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan, also has prompted the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians.

Pakistani troops seized control of Kotkai, where Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has lived with fellow commander Qari Hussein, the mastermind behind some of Pakistan’s deadliest suicide attacks, one military official said.

The airstrikes from jet fighters and helicopter gunships targeted militant hideouts in Kotkai and the villages of Badar, Barwand, and Khisur, all strongholds of the Taliban and their late leader Baitullah Mehsud, another military official said.

(article and photo source: CNN)