13 Taliban killed in Hangu operation

A Pakistani army helicopter killed five Taliban militants on Friday in Hangu district, taking the death toll in three days of fighting to 13, government and military officials said. An offensive was launched late on Wednesday in the Hangu after militants killed 15 soldiers in an ambush last weekend and threatened to kill some 49 troops and officials being held hostage.

Early on Friday morning the army helicopter spotted a vehicle filled with fighters in an area close to the Orakzai tribal region, previously one of the most peaceful of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal lands. “The helicopter fired at a vehicle in Zargari area, killing five militants and wounding six,” a government official in the region said.

After the attack, militants managed to take away their wounded comrades, while the dead bodies were shifted to Hangu, according to officials. A military official in the region confirmed the action. He said 13 militants had been killed in the past few days.

On Thursday, troops cleared two militant strongholds in Hangu district. Residents and military officials said the security forces followed up by targeting militant positions in the surrounding hills with artillery and helicopter gunships.

Hundreds of villagers fled the combat zone on Friday, after officials relaxed a curfew on a main road leading to Kohat, a garrison town about 40 km (25 miles) north-east of Hangu. The security situation across the north-west has deteriorated in recent weeks amid mounting pressure by Western allies on Pakistan to stop militants making cross-border attacks on their troops in Afghanistan.

Afghan, US and Nato officials say the flow of guerrillas into Afghanistan has increased after Pakistan’s new civilian government, sworn in three months ago, sought to quell violence inside Pakistan by engaging Taliban factions in talks. Doubting the government’s sincerity, Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud suspended talks last month.

On Thursday, Mehsud warned violence would increase unless the provincial government in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, resigned. Mehsud was blamed for many of the suicide attacks that ripped through Pakistan in late 2007, including one that killed former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, whose party now heads the 3-month old coalition government.