Cross-border Taliban raid kills 25 troops

Hundreds of Taliban militants from Afghanistan launched a pre-dawn cross-border raid on security forces’ checkposts in the border regions of Chitral district on Saturday, killing at least 25 troops and injuring several others.
Officials said so far 15 security personnel had been killed while the military put the toll at 25. The officials also said a large number of troops were missing, adding that the attack was very severe and the militants had used modern weapons.
They said retaliatory action was still going on as troops blew up a few bridges to stem the militants’ incursion.
Soldiers of the Frontier Scouts and police were among the dead in the string of attacks that began with an assault on checkposts in the border village of Arandu in the northwest just across from Afghanistan’s Nuristan province. The main Chitral-Arandu Road was closed for traffic.
7 checkposts: According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations, at least 25 security personnel, including 16 Frontier Scouts, four policemen and five Levies embraced martyrdom when around 200-300 militants from Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan attacked seven FC checkposts in Chitral.
The security personnel defended the posts by engaging the attackers and reportedly killed 20 of them. However, two border posts were overrun by the terrorists.
Reinforcements had been sent to beef up the border posts, the statement said.
“Reportedly, terrorists from Swat, Dir and Bajaur organised by Fazullah and Maulvi Faqir Mohammad with local Afghans have attacked the security forces posts,” the military statement said, adding, “since their expulsion from their native areas, the terrorists have organised themselves in Kunar and Nuristan provinces with the support of local Afghan authorities.” “Scanty presence” of NATO and Afghan forces along the border has enabled militants to use these areas as safe havens and launch repeated attacks inside Pakistan, it said. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office lodged a strong protest with Afghanistan over the attacks from its soil, and urged the ISAF and the Afghan Army to stop these cross-border incursions.