DTN News: Pakistan TODAY April 13, 2010 ~ 38 Taliban Fighters Said Killed In Pakistan Battle
Source: DTN News / The New York Times By SALMAN MASOOD
(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - April 13, 2010: More than 100
Taliban militants attacked a checkpoint in a tribal region in northwest
Pakistan
early Monday, Pakistani military and security officials said, firing rockets and mortars before being repulsed in a long gun battle.
The attack occurred in Orakzai, one of the seven restive tribal areas that straddle the Pakistan-Afghan border. A three-week Pakistani operation to flush out Taliban fighters has turned Orakzai into the latest center of clashes.
“The clashes started at midnight and continued until early Monday morning,” said Lt. Col. Nadeem Anwar, an army spokesman in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.
Officials put the Taliban death toll at 38, and said two soldiers with Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps had been killed.
Orakzai had become a sanctuary for insurgents routed by the army’s campaign in South Waziristan, notably Tehrik-i-Taliban, an umbrella organization of militant groups operating in the tribal regions. Orakzai was also a stronghold of the Taliban leader
Hakimullah Mehsud, who is generally
believed to have been killed in a airstrike in January.
Army officials said over the weekend that militants fleeing other tribal regions also had taken refuge in the remote, thickly forested Tirah Valley in Khyber.
Pakistani officials say that more than 250 militants have been killed in recent offensives in the Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions, although the figures cannot be verified. Journalists are barred from the areas.
While the Pakistani military is thought to have gained the upper hand in the tribal regions, militants have continued to target civil and military installations. Security forces
foiled an attempt by militants two weeks ago to retake control of a post in the Bezoti area of Orakzai.
Also Monday, at least six people were killed in clashes in the Abottabad district over the renaming of North-West Frontier Province. The police fired tear gas to quell the unrest, which paralyzed the district in recent days. Protesters claimed that the police opened fire on them, but officials said that the police had fired only rubber bullets. Last week, a
suicide bomber killed 42 people at a ceremony being held to celebrate the renaming.
Angry protesters set several vehicles and a police station on fire, and more than 100 people were injured, police officials said.
A package of constitutional amendments, already passed by the National Assembly, renames the province Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, a move long championed by the majority ethnic Pashtun population. The renaming is being resisted, however, by the sizable non-Pashtun minority.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, said Monday that a judicial inquiry into the protests would be held.
Source: DTN News / The New York Times By SALMAN MASOOD
(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - April 13, 2010: More than 100 Taliban militants attacked a checkpoint in a tribal region in northwest Pakistan
early Monday, Pakistani military and security officials said, firing rockets and mortars before being repulsed in a long gun battle.
The attack occurred in Orakzai, one of the seven restive tribal areas that straddle the Pakistan-Afghan border. A three-week Pakistani operation to flush out Taliban fighters has turned Orakzai into the latest center of clashes.
“The clashes started at midnight and continued until early Monday morning,” said Lt. Col. Nadeem Anwar, an army spokesman in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.
Officials put the Taliban death toll at 38, and said two soldiers with Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps had been killed.
Orakzai had become a sanctuary for insurgents routed by the army’s campaign in South Waziristan, notably Tehrik-i-Taliban, an umbrella organization of militant groups operating in the tribal regions. Orakzai was also a stronghold of the Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who is generally believed to have been killed in a airstrike in January.
Army officials said over the weekend that militants fleeing other tribal regions also had taken refuge in the remote, thickly forested Tirah Valley in Khyber.
Pakistani officials say that more than 250 militants have been killed in recent offensives in the Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions, although the figures cannot be verified. Journalists are barred from the areas.
While the Pakistani military is thought to have gained the upper hand in the tribal regions, militants have continued to target civil and military installations. Security forces foiled an attempt by militants two weeks ago to retake control of a post in the Bezoti area of Orakzai.
Also Monday, at least six people were killed in clashes in the Abottabad district over the renaming of North-West Frontier Province. The police fired tear gas to quell the unrest, which paralyzed the district in recent days. Protesters claimed that the police opened fire on them, but officials said that the police had fired only rubber bullets. Last week, a suicide bomber killed 42 people at a ceremony being held to celebrate the renaming.
Angry protesters set several vehicles and a police station on fire, and more than 100 people were injured, police officials said.
A package of constitutional amendments, already passed by the National Assembly, renames the province Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, a move long championed by the majority ethnic Pashtun population. The renaming is being resisted, however, by the sizable non-Pashtun minority.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, said Monday that a judicial inquiry into the protests would be held.
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