Six Pakistani soldiers and 17 Taliban militants were killed in an
overnight clash in a northwestern tribal district near the Afghan
border, officials said Wednesday.
Some 50 Taliban fighters
attacked Pakistani troops during a search operation in Jogi village of
central Kurram tribal district late Tuesday, officials said.
"Six
soldiers were killed and four injured in the clash. Troops repelled the
attack and killed 17 militants," Sher Bahadar Khan, a local government
official in Kurram told AFP.
The militants were Pakistani Taliban, he said.
A
senior official of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps confirmed the
attack, and the casualties, and added that troops had taken control of
the area.
Independent confirmation of the death toll was not immediately possible as the lawless tribal region is barred for journalists .
In July last year Pakistan launched an offensive in Kurram district to evict Islamist militants.
Troops are still engaged in a search and cordon operation after clearing most of the area.
Pakistan's
seven tribal districts bordering Afghanistan are rife with a homegrown
insurgency, and are also strongholds of the Afghan Taliban and
Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Although Pakistan has fought homegrown
Taliban militants across much of the region, it has so far withstood
huge American pressure to move against the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani
network in the tribal North Waziristan on the Afghan border. AFP
