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16 militants and 4 troops killed in Waziristan gunfights

* Security forces arrest 19 ‘miscreants’, seize weapons

By Haji Mujtaba

MIRANSHAH: Sixteen militants were killed and 19 arrested after security forces retaliated to two deadly attacks at two sites in North Waziristan on Wednesday, military spokesman said.

“Four troops were killed and eight injured in the attacks,” Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, the Inter Services Public Relations director general, told Daily Times.

A purported spokesman for pro-Taliban local militants in North Waziristan, Tariq Jameel, confirmed attacks on the security forces but denied “any loss of militants”. He said the late Tuesday night attacks were “revenge” against the killing of two militants in Mir Ali town on Monday.

The Wednesday losses on militants’ side were the second heaviest since March 24 when the security forces clashed with pro-Taliban tribal militants in Dattakhel area and killed 20 of them. The army spokesman said that around 200 pro-Taliban fighters had been reported dead in clashes with security forces since the Saidgai operation on March 1.

On Wednesday, militants first attacked a security check-post in Dattakhel, an area with difficult mountain terrain which is 30 kilometres west of Miranshah, while another check-post was attacked in Mana in the of heavily forested Shawal region, some 70 kilometres west of Miranshah. “Three soldiers were killed in the Mana attack whereas a trooper was killed when security forces launched counter-attack in the morning,” the military spokesman said.

The army used ground troops, heavy guns, artillery and gunship helicopters to comb the Mana area where the security forces took six bodies of the killed militants in custody from a compound.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in Peshawar, said that huge caches of weapons were also seized from two compounds the security forces searched. It was unclear whether foreign militants were among the killed. “I cannot say that foreign militants were among the dead,” the military spokesman said.

The two places are far from Miranshah and it was not known whether civilians were caught in the crossfire.

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