ISLAMABAD: Militants mounted multiple counterattacks on security forces yesterday carrying out a bomb blast and attacking military camps.
In the blast in Quetta, a CD shop at Natha Singh Street was blown up leaving at least five people injured.
Pakistan Army has been fighting in Bajaur, a frontier region that had become a bastion of Taleban militants, for nearly two months. It claims to have killed more than 1,000 rebels, but still faces stiff resistance.
Iqbal Khattak, a government official in Bajaur, said militants attacked security forces in three places overnight. He said the troops repulsed each attack, killing 11 fighters. However, he wouldn’t give details of casualties on the government side. The assaults were on three separate military camps near Khar, Bajaur’s main town.
Khattak said troops killed and wounded militants in each clash and used helicopter gunships and artillery to attack militant positions elsewhere. In addition to the 11 rebels killed, he said dozens of militants were wounded.
Another report said troops killed at least 16 militants after coming under attack.
Early yesterday, helicopter gunships and fighter jets bombed militant positions in three villages in the district, another official said. “According to information gathered here 16 miscreants have been killed in the intense fighting since overnight,” the official said.
The military operation in Bajaur is a critical test of Pakistan’s ability to defeat Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants who use the border regions to mount attacks on US troops in Afghanistan and send suicide bombers into Pakistani cities.
Many Pakistanis believe their nation's support for the US-led war on terror has bred violence in their country.
However, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said Saturday that the tide was turning against domestic extremism.
— With input from Azhar Masood
