About 200 militants with rockets and automatic weapons attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan today, killing one soldier and wounding four, a military official said.
Up to 30 militants were killed in clashes that followed in the Mohmand ethnic Pashtun tribal region in the northwest, two days after the army announced it had made major progress by clearing Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from one of their nerve centres in a neighbouring region.
"About 200 militants were involved in the attack on the checkpost. We are chasing the remaining terrorists," said a military official.
Pakistan has launched two major offensives in the northwest over the past year against homegrown Taliban militants who want to topple the US-backed government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
The operations have destroyed militant bases, and Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is widely believed to have been killed in a US drone strike in January. His predecessor was killed in a similar strike in August.
Suicide bombings have eased in recent weeks but it's not clear whether that is because security has improved or the Taliban are merely regrouping for more attacks.
Pakistan's lawless tribal areas have been a global militant hub since Islamist fighters flocked there to battle Soviet forces over the border in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The United States wants Pakistan to go after Afghan Taliban groups who cross the frontier to attack Western forces in Afghanistan.
But Pakistan says it lacks the resources to open up new fronts, and analysts say it sees those organisations as a counterweight to the influence of rival India in Afghanistan, which could witness a regional grab for influence if US forces leave too soon and trigger chaos.
Separately, the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary said it had killed 38 militants and arrested 18 in a week-long operation near the northwestern garrison town of Kohat.
Reuters