Pakistani forces using helicopter gunships killed up to 20 pro-Taliban militants near the Afghan border early on Friday after an attack on a security post left one soldier dead, officials said.
The fighting in the restive district of North Waziristan came a day after President Pervez Musharraf ordered foreign al-Qaeda militants to quit Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan or be killed.
Military spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan said the militants had also left behind some weapons as they fled.
The insurgents fired rockets before attacking the security forces post with small arms in Datakhel village, near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, officials said.
”Around 20 militants, including some foreigners, were killed when security forces struck their hideout with gunship helicopters and artillery after the attack on a security post which killed one soldier and injured two others,” another military official said on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led ”war on terror”, has deployed 80 000 troops along the border since 2003 to flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who sneaked across from Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Tribal militants with links to the Taliban briefly took control of Miranshah in early March, during a visit to Pakistan by US President George Bush.
Fierce clashes erupted when Pakistani forces tried to retake the the town, leaving around 170 militants and five soldiers dead and forcing thousands of civilians to flee the area.
Days before the battles Pakistani forces crushed a suspected al-Qaeda-linked training camp in North Waziristan, killing about 40 insurgents.
Musharraf’s comments on foreign militants late on Thursday came amid tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan over allegations that Islamabad is failing to crack down on Islamic militants launching cross-border raids from its territory.
”We will never tolerate foreign terrorists and extremists” hiding in the tribal region, Musharraf told a rally in the eastern city of Lahore.
”These foreign militants are indulging in acts of terrorism not only in Pakistan but elsewhere in the world also,” he said.
”I warn them to leave Pakistan, failing which we will eliminate them,” he said.
Pakistani authorities last week also ordered thousands of Afghans living in these tribal areas to go back to their native country.
Meanwhile Pakistan on Thursday lodged a ”strong protest” with Afghanistan over the killing by Afghan troops this week of 16 people who it says were civilians heading to a festival.
Kabul says it is investigating the incident, which happened across the border from Pakistan’s south-western province of Baluchistan, but an Afghan army officer has said the dead men were Taliban insurgents. – Sapa-AFP