Eight Pakistani troops killed in clashes with militants

PAKISTAN: Militants ambushed a convoy of Pakistani troops killing seven and wounding 22 in the deadliest attack for months in a restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

Separately, a suspected foreign insurgent and another paramilitary soldier died in a gunbattle at a checkpoint in the rugged and largely lawless area, they said.

The deaths came amid increasingly intensive efforts by key US ally Pakistan to flush out Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents and their supporters and restore control in the region.

The soldiers who died in the ambush had been securing the convoy's route in Sarobi village 20 kilometres (10 miles) north of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, chief military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said.

"This happened when security forces were moving and mounting routine security positions. The attackers used nearby heights and attacked the security forces," Sultan told AFP. "There are seven martyred and 22 injured."

Helicopter gunships and soldiers hunted the rebels after the attack, killing up to six militants whose bodies were removed by their comrades, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

Sultan said troops were responding to the attack and had secured the area but did not confirm the militant death toll.

An AFP correspondent said firing had stopped but soldiers were barring all vehicles from the area.

Meanwhile a shootout erupted on Thursday when a suspected foreign militant refused to get out of a car at a checkpoint near Khar, the main town in Bajaur which is another of Pakistan's seven tribal regions, Sultan said.

MIRANSHAH, Friday AFP