HANGU (Pakistan) Pakistani security forces, backed by tanks and artillery, attacked Taliban positions in the northwest of the country, killing 22 militants, a senior police official on Monday.
Fighting erupted on Sunday night after an assault on militants in the village of Shahukhel, which borders the Taliban stronghold of the Orakzai ethnic Pashtun tribal region. “There has been fierce fighting throughout the night. Militants fired rocket propelled grenades while troops responded with artillery and tank fire,” local police official Fareed Khattak said. “We have a figure of 22 militants dead and 14 arrested.”
The army said on Monday afternoon that soldiers had killed nine militants in South Waziristan over the previous 24 hours.
Separately, militants fired several mortar bombs into a market in Landi Kotal, the main town in the Khyber region, also on the Afghan border, killing five people and wounding eight, administration and security officials said. Khattak said forces had entered the lawless Orakzai region where many Taliban insurgents had fled. “Now helicopter gunships are striking Taliban hideouts,” he said.
A Taliban spokesman in Orakzai, Zia-ur-Rehman, said both sides suffered heavy casualties in the clashes.
Reuters
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