Having earlier denied that any attack had taken place, it said on Monday it had lost six men in the ambush in the Sabir Kalley area on Dir's western border with Afghanistan. Eleven others were believed missing.
A senior army officer said that seven of the missing men "had reportedly been killed and then beheaded".
The confirmation came shortly after Pak gun-hung tough guys who had fled from Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...during the military operation of May 2009 to Afghanistan and were reportedly living in Kunar province
... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country.....
claimed to have killed 18 soldiers.
"We have bodies of 17 of them," Sirajuddin, front man for the Swat chapter of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain, told news hounds on phone.
But a front man for the central TTP in North Wazoo said four of the 11 missing soldiers were alive.
The army officer said more than 100 gun-hung tough guys "from their safe haven across the border" intruded into Pakistain and attacked the patrol in the afternoon on Sunday with heavy weapons.
"Pakistain Army has lodged a strong protest with their counterparts across the border for not acting against myrmidons present in safe havens in Afghanistan," he said.
This was the third such attack this month in a border stretch of about 10km in Upper Dir, raising apprehensions about a tough summer when melting snow will improve visibility and make movement across the mountainous region easier.
Local people said Pak gun-hung tough guys were operating from their base about 5km from the border in area where there was no presence of Afghan or NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
forces.
They said 11 of the killed and missing people were from the army, six paramilitary personnel and one civilian.
The growing cross-border attacks have caused concern among people in Barawal, the main town in Upper Dir's border region.
Troops were deployed along the border in September last year to prevent gun-hung tough guys from crossing into Pakistain and attacking villagers and security personnel.
The past 10 days have seen a dramatic increase in turbans' attacks.