Taliban militants attacked a military base near the Pak-Afghan border on Thursday, sparking a battle that drew in army helicopters and left up to 50 insurgents and two soldiers dead, Inter Services Public Relations Director General Major General Waheed Arshad said. He said eight other soldiers were wounded in the fighting near Razmak, a town in the North Waziristan.He said security forces repelled repeated militant attacks. Army helicopters and ground fire destroyed four rebel positions, he added. He said the army’s initial estimate was that at least 30 militants were killed, but added later that tribesmen informed officials that up to 50 rebels had died in the military attack. He dismissed a claim by militants that they had killed over 100 soldiers in the region in the past two days as “totally false” and “baseless”.
A militant rocket hit a transformer and power line, cutting electricity in Razmak, he said. He also denied reports from three intelligence officials who said 10 soldiers had been killed in the fighting. One of the intelligence officials, on the condition of anonymity, told the AP that four to six other soldiers were missing after the attack on the Nawaz Fort base.
| The security forces also killed around forty militants on Wednesday. |
Fighting between Taliban militants and security forces has been raging across the NWFP since the armyÂ’s operation against Lal Masjid in Islamabad. Most of the combat has taken place in the rugged mountains along the Pak-Afghan border, where PakistanÂ’s key foreign ally, the United States, fears Al-Qaeda is regrouping.