Taliban clashes with Pakistan army, 20 dead

November 23, 2009 9:34 a.m. EST

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) --

The Pakistani military killed 20 (Pakistani Taliban fighters) during military operations in northwest Pakistan late Sunday night and into Monday morning, a senior military official told CNN.

The official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said troops used tanks and artillery to target Taliban hideouts in the village of Shahukhel in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

Troops are facing heavy resistance from the militants, who are using rockets and grenades to fight back near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, the official said.

There has been an increase in militant activity in the northern districts of the tribal region because militants have fled to those areas from South Waziristan, where the army continues its offensive against the Taliban, Pakistan's top military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told CNN Sunday.

Car bomb kills 7 at Pakistan spy agency

USA Today, November 23, 2009

A suicide car bomb devastated Pakistan's main spy agency building in Peshawar in the northwest today, killing at least seven people. The blast destroyed much of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency's building. Seven people were killed and 35 wounded, police officer Ullah Khan said.

About an hour later, another car bomb wounded 10 people at a police station in Bakakhel, in the semiautonomous tribal region, intelligence officials told the Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of their work.

The blasts were the latest in a string of insurgent attacks since the government launched an offensive in mid-October against militants in the border region of South Waziristan.

Across the border in Afghanistan, a suicide bombing wounded six people today near Camp Phoenix, a support base for U.S. forces just outside Kabul, said Abdul Ghafar Sayed Zada, chief of criminal investigation for Kabul police.