Over 70 people, including 28 security personnel, were killed when hundreds of heavily armed Taliban fighters crossed into northwest Pakistan and besieged a remote checkpost, in one of the deadliest attacks in months.
About 300 heavily armed militants attacked the check post at Shalotal in Upper Dir district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province early on Wednesday.
The fighting, which began on Wednesday and continued into Thursday, came as a top Pakistani general said the military plans to stage an operation against militants in a tribal region that juts deep inside Afghanistan, but denied media reports of an upcoming offensive in North Waziristan, the tribal area where the U.S. has been pushing for action.
Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan has for years been a stomping ground for Islamist extremists, some of whom focus on attacks against Western forces across the border, some who attack the Pakistani State and others who plot terrorism against the West.
Pakistan has taken action against militants in the northwest, but they have proved to be resilient. The clashes erupted on Wednesday in Shaltalo town in Upper Dir district. Upper Dir lies just outside the tribal belt, but it too has witnessed Al Qaida and Taliban militant activity and been the focus of military offensives.
Police said some 200 militants crossed over into Pakistan from Afghanistan, and went after a checkpoint manned by police and paramilitary troops.
Regional police chief Ghulam Mohammed said 25 security troops and three civilians died, while 35 militants were killed. He said many of the attackers had fled back to Afghanistan as the fighting wound down on Thursday.
Mohammed said the situation was now under control, and funerals were being arranged.
On Wednesday, army Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, who oversees military operations in the tribal areas, other parts of the northwest, said the Kurram tribal area would be the next target of an offensive after local leaders there requested it.
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