Militants abandon Pakistan fort

January 17th, 2008 Sana · No Comments

Source: CNN

Islamic militants have abandoned a border fort in northwestern Pakistan they overran during a pitched battle Wednesday, a military spokesman said.

The militants left later Wednesday without another battle with Pakistani forces, Major General Athar Abbas told CNN.

The battle for the control of the fort killed at least seven of 40 Pakistani troops stationed there. Fifteen others fled and 18 border guards were initially reported missing.

Abbas said that five of the missing guards were apparently located in a nearby village, but his men had not yet confirmed the report.

The militants breached the walls of the colonial-era outpost along the Afghan border with explosives and seized the fort after a firefight that lasted about 12 hours, said army Lt. Col. Baseer Hadier Malik.

The outpost is in a part of the tribal territory of South Waziristan that is a stronghold of Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud — the man the Pakistani government has named a prime suspect in the December 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

An estimated 250 to 300 or more fighters armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades took part in the assault against a garrison of 40 members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps, Malik said.

Pakistan has attempted to crack down on the largely lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border under U.S. pressure. U.S. intelligence concluded in 2007 that that Taliban and its al Qaeda allies have carved out a new safe haven in that region, using it to stage attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

A U.S.-led invasion overthrew the Taliban after al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, but American and allied troops are now battling a resurgence of the fundamentalist Islamic militia in Afghanistan’s south.