Four soldiers and at least 39 militants were killed Saturday in a day-long gun battle in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern tribal region, officials said. The fighting took place as Pakistani troops, backed by helicopter gunships, carried out a search operation around the town of Bara in the lawless Khyber tribal district bordering Afghanistan. “Four paramilitary solders were martyred and seven others were wounded in today’s fighting,” a senior security official told AFP. “At least 39 militants were also killed,” he said. Four civilians also died when a mortar shell hit a house, a government official said. “Four civilians were killed in the day-long gunfight when a mortar shell hit their house,” Khyber’s deputy administration chief Syed Ahmed Jan told AFP. It was not immediately clear who fired the mortar shell, he said. A senior paramilitary official said the militants belonged to the Taliban-linked Laskhar-e-Islam group that is led by warlord Mangal Bagh. Independent verification of the incident is not possible as access to the area is restricted by the military.
33 militants killed: Fighter jets bombed several militant hideouts in Orakzai Agency, killing 33 militants and wounding 23 others, military officials said on Saturday. According to sources, hideouts of terrorists were pounded in shelling by the forces in Upper Orakzai Agency area of Mamozai, Oadkhel and Jabba, killing several militants. They added that at least three dens were also destroyed in the operation. In another strike, four militant hideouts in the Khadezai and Mamozai areas of the tribal region were destroyed. Orakzai is one of seven ethnic Pashtun tribal areas where the military has carried out offensives to root out insurgent groups.
