Afghan troops clashed with suspected militants in eastern Afghanistan, just across the border from Pakistan, leaving several suspected militants dead and 10 Afghan soldiers wounded, a Defense Ministry statement said on Tuesday. In the south, a roadside blast killed three Afghan troops, while clashes left at least eight Taliban militants dead, officials said. Near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the body of a Pakistani militant was found in the battlefield on Monday near Bermel district of the Paktika province, while the wounded Afghan soldiers were evacuated to a nearby medical facility where they were listed in stabile condition, the statement said. The clash happened just across from PakistanÂ’s lawless North Waziristan region where a recent spate of attacks left more than 70 people dead, mostly police and soldiers.
The rising violence in the region comes as US officials say Al Qaeda is regrouping in that area. Pakistani authorities are scrambling to salvage a peace agreement between the government and village elders. Pro-Taliban militants had renounced the agreement following last weekÂ’s storming of Lal Masjid in Islamabad. US officials have repeatedly said that the North Waziristan deal has led to increased cross-border infiltration by militants.
In the southern province of Kandahar, militants clashed with NATO and Afghan troops on Monday, in a battle that left eight militants dead, said Sayed Agha Saqib, KandaharÂ’s police chief. There were no casualties among Afghan and NATO troops, and authorities recovered the militantsÂ’ bodies, Saqib said. In Helmand, a bomb attack on a vehicle carrying Afghan soldiers in Gereshk on Monday killed three troops and wounded two, said the provincial police chief. Southern Afghanistan has been hit by an Al Qaeda backed Taliban insurgency which has claimed thousands of lives and left an international reconstruction drive all but paralysed in war-torn areas.