KALAYA, Pakistan, April 4, (Agencies): Pakistani forces backed by tanks and artillery repulsed Taleban attacks in northwestern Orakzai on Sunday, killing nearly 40 militants, a government official said.
Orakzai, southwest of Peshawar, has become a Taleban hub since security forces mounted offensives against their strongholds in other parts of the ethnic Pashtun northwest over the past year, security officials say.
Pakistan, an important US ally has recently stepped up assaults in Orakzai and the militants have been retaliating.
Sajid Khan, a government official in the region, told Reuters that several dozen militants attacked a security post in a village early on Sunday.
“They used rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns, but our soldiers’ response was quick and tough,” said Khan, who is based in Kalaya, the region’s main town.
Twenty-five militants were killed and 10 wounded in the clash, he said.
Hours later, militants ambushed a military convoy in a nearby village and at least a dozen militants were killed, Khan said.
He said only one government soldier was wounded in the clashes.
There was no independent confirmation of Khan’s casualty tolls but a security official, who declined to be identified, gave similar figures in the clashes.
Pakistan’s action against militants over the past year has won US praise and eased fears that the militants could threaten the state or even seize its nuclear arsenal.
Pakistani action against militants along its Afghan border is seen as crucial to US efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, particularly as Washington sends more troops there to fight a raging Taleban insurgency before a gradual withdrawal starts in 2011.
According to security officials, about 170 militants have been killed in several weeks of clashes in Orakzai, but there has been no independent verification of the figures. Major Fazlur Rehman spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps said the clashes erupted after the Frontier Corps and army troops came under fire from the nearby heights in the village.
He said the troops captured six militants who were wounded during the fighting, adding that four soldiers also sustained injuries.
Local administration official Sajjad Ahmad confirmed the incident and casualties, saying “the security forces retaliated with full force in a closely coordinated action with attack helicopters.”
The military has announced a running death toll of more than 100 militants in the Orakzai operation since late last month, but the figures cannot be verified independently because access to the remote area is extremely limited.
Orakzai is a former bastion of Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan leader Hakimullah Mehsud, whom US officials believe probably died in a US drone attack in January. The Pakistani military says it has no evidence he is in the area.
Under US pressure, Pakistan has in the past year significantly increased operations against militants in its tribal belt, which Washington has called the most dangerous region on Earth and a global headquarters of al-Qaeda.
The rugged tribal terrain became a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled neighbouring Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Washington says the militants use Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt to plot and stage attacks against NATO troops stationed in Afghanistan.