After a three-day operation, Pakistani security
forces killed 71 militants who carried out cross-border attacks from
Afghanistan, police said Saturday.
A police official in Peshawar said the militants were beaten back
but the search operation is still under way in the country's
northwestern district of Dir near the border with Afghanistan.
On Wednesday morning, 300 to 400 militants sneaked cross the border
into Pakistan and attacked a security checkpost in Upper Dir district.
In the pre-dawn shootout, at least 27 security troops and 45 militants
were killed.
Afghan militants again entered border areas of the Upper Dir
district on Friday, officials said, but the authorities had dispatched
gunships to target the militants.
A police official in Dir said local people had forced the militants
to flee after a fierce gunfight. He said that the militants had come
from Afghanistan across the border to target villages and burn schools.
Another senior police official in Dir said that army and police
personnel had launched a joint operation to clear the area of militants.
He said that the militants were mainly Afghan Taliban, but there were also some Taliban fighters from Swat and Lower Dir.
Also on Friday, Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP),
claimed responsibility for the attack on the checkpost. "Up to 40 to 50
of our fighters took part in the operation," said a spokesperson for
TTP, who identified himself as Ehsanullah Ehsan, over telephone.
"We are in close contact with Afghan Taliban. Both of us want to get
rid of America and its slaves. Our activities will continue, " said
Ehsan.
The exact location where militants carried out an armed assault lies
about 20 kilometers inside the Pakistani territory, sharing a common
border with Afghan province of Kunar that has remained a center for
al-Qaida and other militants in the past.
Late Thursday night, Pakistani Foreign Office summoned Afghan envoy
and lodged a protest over the attacks by Afghan militants on the
checkpost and villages adjacent to the Afghan border.
The Foreign Secretary stressed the need for stern action by the
Afghan army to put a strong check on militants to avoid any such
attacks in the future.
The statement also said that Pakistan would lodge protest with NATO
forces to take serious measures against militants and their hideouts in
Afghanistan and against organizational support for the militants.
In the past Pakistan complained that NATO doesn't deploy enough
troops along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to avoid cross-border
insurgency. On the other hand, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen while addressing a press conference in Brussels asked
Pakistan to intensify the war on border.
The cross-border attacks came at the time when the United States is
pushing Pakistan to do more against militants and their safe havens in
northwestern Pakistan. Some media reports revealed that the Pakistani
army is planning to carry out an exclusive military offensive in the
nearby North Waziristan but the army denied the news. Xinhua
