PESHAWAR (AFP) - Warplanes on Thursday bombed suspected Taliban outposts in the South Waziristan tribal region in which security officials said 27 people died. The military has stepped up bombing raids in the region, where tens of thousands of civilians have fled a feared ground offensive that has been hotly anticipated for months but has so far failed to materialise. There was heavy bombing today. 27 people were killed, it was not clear how many were militants, one security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The dead were killed in three separate locations, he added. Other security official quoted the same death toll, although independent confirmation and the identities of the dead were not immediately clear. We are targeting militant hideouts with jet fighters and helicopter gunships in the first phase of an operation in South Waziristan, said Tariq Hayat, a top government official responsible for Pakistans tribal belt. There are some 1,500 foreign militants including Uzbeks, Chechens, Arabs and Sudanese in South Waziristan, he added. Residents said jets carried out repeated sorties in the area, considered a stronghold of Taliban militants. Analysts accuse the government of lacking a strategy to curb militants, who have been blamed for a string of high-profile attacks that have killed more than 160 people nationwide in 11 days. The government in June ordered an operation into the mountainous northwest stronghold of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, but so far only air raids and occasional artillery strikes have hit rebel sanctuaries. Those raids have been stepped up since a day-long hostage siege at army headquarters deeply embarrassed the military at the weekend.