KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Pakistani troops Thursday killed five militants in attacks on Taliban hideouts in a northwestern region near the Afghan border, security officials said.
Troops fired mortar and artillery shells on several villages in Bajaur district in which five rebels died and seven were wounded, a security official said.
On Wednesday troops killed up to 50 militants in the area, including some important Taliban commanders and foreign fighters, military officials said.
Pakistani forces for the past three weeks have been engaged in operations to destroy militant bases in Bajaur in which more than 500 people, mostly militants, have been killed according to official count.
In another incident Thursday tribesmen shot dead a suspected suicide bomber and arrested two armed Taliban militants when they barged into a gathering of tribal elders.
The influential tribal leaders were meeting in Pashak town to denounce the presence of militants and had vowed to support the government campaign against the Taliban.
Bajaur, bordering Afghanistan, has become a hub of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. Pakistani forces moved into Bajaur earlier this month and the operation has since displaced around 260,000 people, officials say.
Pakistan's fragile coalition government, which pushed US ally Pervez Musharraf to resign as president on August 18 over impeachment threats, is under heavy international pressure to combat the rebels.
But violence linked to the country's role in the "war on terror" has killed nearly 1,200 people in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan in the past year.
Pakistan's lawless tribal regions have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
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