Two children killed in Pakistan gunbattle: officials
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) — Two children were killed when Pakistan security forces and suspected pro-Taliban militants traded fire in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
The battle in Banda village of North Waziristan tribal district took place late Monday after militants fired 11 rockets at a military checkpost and troops retaliated with artillery, a security official told AFP.
Some shells hit a few houses in the village and two children, aged five and 11 years old, were killed. Six people, two children and four women, were wounded, the official said.
It was not immediately clear whose fire caused the damage and casualties, he said.
Suspected pro-Taliban militants regularly attack troops in the area.
US officials say Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who infiltrated Pakistan's tribal belt after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001, have regrouped in the region.
Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror", has deployed some 90,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan but has failed to quell the unrest.
