Pakistan kills up to 30 militants near Afghan border

Thursday, March 4, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani security forces killed up to 30 Taliban fighters on Thursday in a counter-offensive after coming under attack in a volatile tribal area on the Afghan border, military officials said.
Militants killed one soldier and wounded four in an early morning attack on a military check post in Mohmand tribal region, prompting security forces to retaliate.
"During fighting, 25 to 30 terrorists were killed," a military official told Reuters.
Another official said the bodies of five militants were in the custody of the security forces.
The clash erupted two days after Pakistan said it had cleared the Taliban and al Qaeda from nearby Bajaur region after nearly two years of fighting in the area.
Separately, the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary said it had killed 38 militants and arrested 18 in a week-long operation near the northwestern garrison town of Kohat.
Pakistan's lawless tribal areas have been global militant hubs since Islamist fighters flocked there to battle Soviet forces over the border in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border.