Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 60 Taliban and al-Qaeda militants near the Afghan border, just days after the Marriott Hotel was bombed, officials said on Tuesday.
A soldier was also killed in two days of fierce clashes with Islamist fighters near the troubled north-western city of Peshawar and separately in the volatile tribal frontier region of Bajaur, they said.
Pakistan’s new civilian government vowed at the weekend to crack down on militant ”hot spots” in the wake of Saturday’s devastating suicide attack on the hotel in Islamabad, in which at least 60 people died.
In the biggest battle, troops on Monday launched a ”search and cordon” operation to clear extremists from a strategic road tunnel and other hideouts in Dara Adam Khel, a restive region just outside Peshawar, the army said.
”Helicopter gunships and artillery are pounding the miscreants’ hideouts. More than 50 miscreants have been killed so far and one soldier was also martyred,” military spokesperson Major Murad Khan said.
Khan said troops took control on Monday of the Japanese-built Kohat tunnel, a key road leading out of Peshawar that was occupied by hard-line forces last month.
Soldiers were now carrying out operations in the main bazaar in Dara Adam Khel, which is home to Pakistan’s biggest private weapons market, he said.
Peshawar remains on high alert after gunmen kidnapped Afghanistan’s incoming ambassador, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, and shot dead his driver in the city on Monday.
”We strongly suspect Farahi has been moved to some tribal district,” possibly Dara Adam Khel, a senior police officer involved in the hunt for the envoy said on condition of anonymity.
Separately Pakistani troops killed six militants in a mortar attack on a militant vehicle, and another four in a gun battle in Bajaur on Monday, in both cases after rebels tried to attack security check posts, officials said.
Pakistani forces launched an operation in Bajaur last month, which officials say has left more than 800 people, mostly militants, dead. Nearly 300 000 residents have been displaced by the fighting.
Analysts say the Marriott attack in Islamabad was likely in revenge for the offensive in Bajaur — which is believed to be the hideout of Osama bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Pakistani officials say an al-Qaeda cell based in Islamabad was believed to be behind the hotel blast, in which a suicide bomber rammed a truck into the outer gates of the Marriott.
The attack has increased pressure on Islamabad to crack down on al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal regions, who are also accused of launching attacks on US and Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. — AFP
