(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Four Pakistani soldiers were killed and at least eight were missing after insurgents using rockets and grenades stormed a checkpoint overnight in the remote border region of North Waziristan, security sources said yesterday.
The Pakistani military launched an operation to push the Taliban out of North Waziristan, their key stronghold, in June. Bases there were used by a variety of insurgent groups to stage deadly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Three military sources, who asked not to be identified, said a major was among those killed in the attack. Eleven men were wounded and between eight and 10 were missing, they said.
A curfew had been imposed in Datta Khel, where the attack took place, and soldiers were combing the area around the Spara Gher checkpoint for their missing comrades, the sources said.
The Taliban have captured Pakistani soldiers in the past. Sometimes they have been released or have escaped. In 2012, the Islamist group beheaded 17 soldiers and posted a video of the killings on the Internet.
The military launched the North Waziristan operation to flush out the militants on June 15, days after militants mounted a deadly assault on Pakistan's biggest airport.
The offensive followed months of futile attempts to hold peace talks between the new government of Nawaz Sharif and the insurgents.
The military says it has killed around 1,200 insurgents so far and arrested around 300. The area is closed to journalists unless they travel with the military and most of the civilian residents - around a million people - were also ordered to leave their homes until the offensive is over.
Meanwhile, senior officers said yesterday during a rare trip to the conflict zone that army has killed 1,200 suspected militants in an anti-Taliban offensive during the past five months, seriously reducing the group's ability to carry out attacks.
The ongoing operation has targeted the militant stronghold in North Waziristan that borders Afghanistan and has acted as a staging post for deadly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The offensive was launched as Western forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan.
In the centre of Mir Ali, the second largest town in the region, there was hardly a building untouched by the fighting.
Major General Zafarullah Khan, the officer in charge of North Waziristan, said that a widely-predicted wave of violence in response to the operation had failed to materialise.
"The action which was expected has not come," he said on Saturday, picking his way through shattered buildings as he pointed out places he said were used for torturing prisoners or producing propaganda videos. "Significant successes have been made."
The military had killed nearly 1,200 militants since the operation began, he said, but refused to show their pictures out of respect for the dead. Another 230 had been arrested, and around 132 tons of explosive recovered so far, he said.
Large amounts of weapons, ammunition and many vehicles had also been seized, he said, showing off a US-made Hummer jeep whose windscreen had been shattered by bullets.
Many of the areas the military moved into had been booby trapped, Khan said, and soldiers were going house to house to defuse bombs.
"They have planted (them) in houses, they have planted (them) in the streets, they've planted (them) even in the trees," he said.
The militants generally rely on bombs and ambushes to engage the military rather than risking an open battle.
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