Twenty Taliban militants and five Pakistani soldiers were killed in a firefight in the restive northwestern region on the Afghan border, security officials said today.
The fighting in the Khyber tribal region broke out after dozens of militants carrying automatic weapons and rockets attacked a security post last night, the officials said.
Violence has surged in Khyber as well as in neighbouring Orakzai tribal region in recent weeks after militants moved there after being driven out of their main bastion in South Waziristan.
"There was one suicide bomber among the attackers who blew himself up during the fighting and killed five soldiers," a security official said.
"In a counter-offensive, the soldiers killed 20 militants and wounded 35. The attack was repulsed," he added.
Pakistani action against militants along its Afghan border is seen as crucial to US efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, particularly as Washington sends more troops there to fight a raging Taliban insurgency before a gradual withdrawal starts in 2011.
But Pakistan has resisted US pressure to go after Afghan militants on its side of the border, saying its army is already stretched fighting homegrown Taliban fighters.
About 100 militants were killed in clashes last week, officials said. There has been no independent verification of these figures.
The United States has also stepped up unmanned aerial drone attacks mainly in North Waziristan, a major sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's northwest, in recent months.
Five Pakistani militants were killed when a US drone fired three missiles into a school used by militants as a hideout shortly after midnight near Miranshah, North Waziristan's main town, intelligence officials said.
Reuters