MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — A bomb attack on Monday wounded at least 10
Pakistani soldiers in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda hotspot of Waziristan on
the Afghan border, officials said.
The device was detonated by
remote control as a military vehicle passed through the Sararogha
village area in the mountains of South Waziristan, which is part of
Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal district.
"At least 10 soldiers were wounded, three of them seriously," a security official told AFP.
A local intelligence official confirmed the bomb blast and casualties.
Pakistan
carried out a sweeping offensive in 2009 in South Waziristan targeting
the country's main Taliban faction, but many of their commanders and
foot soldiers are believed to have fled to neighbouring North
Waziristan.
Washington is pressing Islamabad to launch an all-out
offensive in North Waziristan against the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani
network, which is responsible for killing US troops in Afghanistan and
to which Pakistani spies have close connections.
But relations
between Islamabad and Washington plummeted after US commandos killed
Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May, and the military says it is too
overstretched fighting Taliban elsewhere to open a new front in
Waziristan. AFP
