Pakistan's military said on Friday that 32 militants were killed in clashes in the tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

The military said in a statement that insurgents were ambushed by security forces in the Tirah area of Khyber, where the Taliban and members of other militant factions were in hiding from an army offensive.

"Reportedly a group of terrorists was moving from Tirah towards Pak-Afghan border. Security forces ambushed the moving group at Wurmagai and Spurkot, killing 32 terrorists in exchange of fire," the statement said, adding that three security personnel had also been injured.

The Associated Press also reported that Pakistan's military said a further 27 militants had been killed in a separate operation on Thursday, including an Uzbek commander.

Military operation in wake of school massacre

Islamabad earlier this week reaffirmed its determination to defeat the Taliban following a school massacre in the country's northwest.

Several Taliban gunmen stormed the Army Public School in Peshawar on Tuesday, killing 148 people, including 132 children, in the country's worst-ever terror attack.

The militant group said the assault was in revenge for the killing of its fighters and their families in an ongoing military operation against its hideouts in the North Waziristan tribal area.

North Waziristan has been a base for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group, as well as the Haqqani network, both of which target US and NATO forces across the border.

Pakistan has waged an ongoing battle against Islamist groups in its semi-autonomous tribal belt since 2004 when the military launched an operation to target al Qaeda fighters who had fled after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

In other developments, the Associated Press reported that army chief General Raheel Sharif signed the death warrants late on Thursday of six "hard core terrorists" sentenced to death by military courts.

This comes after Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday announced he would lift a moratorium on executions in terrorism-related cases.

lw/pfd (AFP, AP)