Up to 40 suspected tribal militants were killed in a military operation backed by gunship helicopters and artillery in North Waziristan on Wednesday, the army said. “According to local sources, 30 to 40 militants were killed in the operation,” military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said of the operation south of Razmak town. He could not say if any foreign militants were among the dead. Security forces launched the operation on Tuesday night. “The miscreants were occupying mountaintops to launch several attacks on troops. We used artillery and Cobra gunship helicopters to dislodge them,” Gen Arshad told AFP. “The ground troops have started reaching the area for mopping up operations once the firing ends,” Arshad said, adding that the clash was ongoing.
Security forces said they had killed a top pro-Taliban militant commander, Ismatullah Khan, last week in the same region along with five other militants. A purported spokesman for Taliban militants in North Waziristan, however, said he knew of no operation around Razmak town. “We have no reports of any such operation nor did we hear of the loss of so many comrades,” Ahmedullah Ahmed told Daily Times.
18 kidnapped: Earlier, Taliban militants kidnapped 18 security personnel and injured three – two paramilitary soldiers and a policeman - after attacking the Baran Bridge check-post in Bannu district with rockets in a pre-dawn raid. Gen Arshad told AP the militants abducted 18 police officers and left behind two others injured in the attack. He gave no more details. “More than 100 militants coming in vehicles first attacked the post with hand-grenades and rockets and then made the security personnel surrender,” a senior police officer at Cantt police station in Banny city told Daily Times by phone. Two seriously injured security personnel were rushed to Peshawar for treatment, he said and added the militants “looked like Taliban with their long hair”.
The militants abandoned one wounded paramilitary soldier, Jan Alam, who told local police that the militants were taking the kidnapped soldiers in the direction of Mir Ali, North Waziristan. The militants also took Rs 200,000 in cash, 23 7.6-bore rifles, two Klashnikovs, one light machine gun and 7,300 rounds of ammunition after overrunning the post. They also damaged a standing armoured personnel carrier, the police official said.
Hostage warning: Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Baitullah Mehsud group holding over 200 soldiers in South Waziristan warned the government against military operations. “We will start killing them in batches of three soldiers if the military operations do not stop,” spokesman Zulfiqar Mehsud said.