21 Taliban killed in Pakistan assault

Wed Mar 24, 2010, 8:31 am ET

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) –

Pakistan's armed forces launched an assault Wednesday on Taliban hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, killing at least 21 fighters in firefights and bombing raids, officials said.

The operation began hours after a US drone aircraft fired two missiles into a compound in North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border, killing at least six suspected fighters in the latest strike by the spy planes.

Pakistani paramilitary troops began operations just after midnight Wednesday to flush out militants from the outskirts of the main town in the Orakzai tribal district, senior security officials in the region said.

Helicopter gunships also shelled the fighters in the same area of Orakzai.

Major Fazal-ur-Rehman, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, confirmed that security forces were battling insurgents in Orakzai and there were "militant losses", but did not give the numbers.

An intelligence official in Peshawar gave a higher death toll, telling AFP that 12 Taliban fighters were killed in the firefights with Pakistani troops while 11 were killed in the helicopter shelling.

Under US pressure, Pakistan has in the past year significantly increased operations against militants in its northwest including the tribal belt.

The rugged tribal terrain became a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled neighbouring Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001.

Washington says the militants use Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt to plot and stage attacks against NATO troops stationed in Afghanistan.

The United States has also stepped up missile strikes in the tribal belt. The raid late Tuesday was the latest in nearly 100 US drone strikes that have killed more than 830 people in Pakistan since August 2008.

Pakistan's foreign minister and army chief were in Washington on Wednesday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where they were expected to push to secure armed drones for their own military.

The drone raids fuel anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and the government publicly opposes them as a violation of its sovereignty, but officials in Washington defend them as a vital tool to protect troops in Afghanistan.