At least 11 soldiers and 24 rebels killed in battles in northwestern Pakistani tribal region, officials say.
Pakistani troops have killed at least 24 rebels after several security checkpoints were attacked in a northwestern tribal region on the Afghan border, military officials said.
A statement from the Frontier Corps security force, a paramilitary division of the military, said that around 150 fighters staged simultaneous attacks using small and heavy weapons on five army checkposts in the Baizai area of the Mohmand tribal agency on the Afghan border on Friday.
The Taliban said only two of their fighters had died.
Amjad Ali Khan, an administrator of Mohmand, confirmed that 11 soldiers had been killed following initial reports that three had died. He said 12 other soldiers had been injured.
Khan said the Frontier Corps paramilitary troops had “repulsed” the rebel attacks in the Baizai area which began at 0200 local time and ended later on Friday morning.
“The troops responded with artillery fire and raids by helicopter gunships, killing 24 militants,” he said.
“Seven of their bodies are in our possession.”
The information is difficult to verify independently because access to the region is restricted.
‘Strategically important’
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islambad, said the military “claims that they have inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers”.
“Mohmand is a strategically important area because this is at the confluence of at least two provinces on the Afghan side of the border,” he said.
Pakistan’s Mohmand tribal region has long served as a sanctuary for rebels operating against US-led troops based across the border in Afghanistan’s northeast Kunar province.
Mohmand also shares a border with another volatile Pakistani tribal district, Bajaur, where the Pakistani army conducted a year-long operation against Taliban fighters in 2008 and 2009.
Mounting pressure
Pakistani troops have scored major gains against pro-Taliban fighters in military offensives and operations since last year, however, attacks against security forces and civilians still continue.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since the army stormed a mosque in capital Islamabad in 2007.
The army says its offensives in the Swat valley, South Waziristan and other tribal regions have weakened the Taliban, although analysts question their effectiveness because rebels tend to establish strongholds elsewhere.
Pakistani action against rebels on the border is seen as crucial to efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, where US forces are spearheading one of NATO’s biggest offensives against the Afghan Taliban.
However, Pakistan has often been criticised for not doing enough.
An intensifying uprising in Afghanistan has brought more pressure on Pakistan to go after rebels operating out of sanctuaries in remote enclaves on its side of the border.
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