Pakistani troops killed at least 34 militants after some 150 Taliban attacked a military checkpost in the northwest today, challenging government assertions crackdowns have weakened the group.
Homegrown Taliban are seeking to topple the US-backed government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who has been pressured to hand over some of his key powers, such as dissolving parliament and appointing military chiefs.
A senior military officer and four paramilitary soldiers were also killed in the attack in the Orakzai, a day after Pakistani jets killed nearly 50 people, mostly militants, in strikes on a school and an Islamic seminary in the same region, a government official said.
Fourteen soldiers were wounded in the Taliban assault.
Orakzai, one of seven Pakistani tribal regions near the Afghan border, also known as agencies, has seen a surge in military attacks in recent months, targeting militants who were driven out of militant bastion of South Waziristan.
Pakistan launched two major offensives last year in the northwestern Swat Valley and in South Waziristan on the Afghan border, which it says have thrown the al-Qaeda-linked militants into disarray.
But despite losing ground, the Taliban have hit back with bombings that killed hundreds, prompting troops to step up attacks in other northwestern regions where militants are believed to have taken refuge after offensives.
In the latest attack, up to 150 Taliban mounted a pre-dawn assault on a security checkpost in Orakzai.
"They attacked from three sides which continued for nearly three hours in which a lieutenant colonel and four other security officials were killed," said government official Khaista Rehman.
Army helicopter gunships later struck suspected militant hideouts in Orakzai, considered a militant stronghold of Pakistan Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who is widely believed to have been killed in a US drone aircraft attack in January.
It was not immediately known if there were any fresh casualties in the air strikes.
Pakistani action against militants along its Afghan border is seen as crucial to the 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.
The two allies pledged increased cooperation in tackling militants during two days of talks in Washington that ended yesterday with the US promising to speed up overdue military payments.
US defence secretary Robert Gates has praised Pakistan for increased coordination over stabilising Afghanistan, including the recent arrest of a key Afghan Taliban commander in what has been described as a joint American-Pakistani raid in Karachi.
Reuters