ISLAMABAD: Backed by helicopter gunships, Pakistani troops on Saturday killed 14 militants following an attack on army posts near the Afghan border, two army officers and a government official said.

The attack began after dozens of insurgents sneaked across the border into Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region of Bajur and hit at least two military checkpoints, killing one soldier and wounding two others, local government administrator Shah Naseem said.

Naseem said the attackers were armed with heavy weapons and targeted several military posts in Nao Top border village, about 50 kilometers northwest of Khar, the main town in Bajur.

The attack in Bajur prompted a gunbattle, which was still underway hours later, two army officers told The Associated Press.

Pakistani troops were fighting “effectively and responding to attack,” the officers said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

Father’s custody in murder case extended

A Pakistani court Saturday extended custody of the father of a woman bludgeoned to death in public for marrying a man she loved, police said, giving them more time to investigate the crime.

Farzana Parveen died after she was set upon by more than two dozen attackers armed with bricks outside Lahore’s High Court on Tuesday, including numerous relatives, for marrying against her family’s wishes.

Parveen’s father Mohammad Azeem was detained at the scene of the attack. Four others, including an uncle, two of her cousins, and a driver were arrested late Thursday.

“The court has given a seven-day remand of Mohammad Azeem, the father of the murdered girl,” senior police offiicial Omer Riaz Cheema told AFP.

Parveen’s husband Mohammad Iqbal — who Thursday admitted he had strangled his first wife out of love for Parveen — told AFP he wanted to see her attackers “killed with bricks.”

Iqbal was spared jail for the murder of his first wife because his sons persuaded her family to pardon him under Pakistan’s blood-money laws. These allow a victim’s family to forgive the murderer, which makes prosecuting so-called “honor” cases difficult as the killer is usually a relative.

Parveen was at court to testify in Iqbal’s defense when she was killed, after he was accused by her relatives of kidnapping her and forcing her into marriage.

Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year in the name of defending family “honor.”

But the brazen, brutal nature of Parveen’s killing, in broad daylight in the center of Pakistan’s second largest city, has triggered outrage around the world.

Police were apparently at the scene, but did not stop the mob killing Parveen, who was three months pregnant.

A senior officer named Hameed defended his men’s actions, saying one had snatched a gun from an attacker, but claimed the mob was too large for police to stop the killing.