Eight Pakistani troops killed in Taliban ambush

ISLAMABAD - Eight Pakistani troops were killed and 15 more injured when Taliban militants ambushed a security convoy in the country’s tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said Friday.

The convoy came under attack late Thursday in North Waziristan tribal district, a known hotbed of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters launching cross-border attacks against international forces in Afghanistan.

A senior military official said that a group of militants ambushed the convoy of several military vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades as it was moving toward Datta Khel area from Miran Shah, the main town in the district.

Seven soldiers, including an officer, died at the spot while another succumbed to his injuries in hospital on Friday morning, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An official statement from the Pakistani Army’s media wing put the death toll at seven and the number of injured at 16. Two of the wounded soldiers were in critical condition, the statement said.

The attack seemed to be a violation of a truce in North Waziristan between the government and Taliban militants who have escaped Pakistan’s recent actions against Islamist insurgents in the tribal region.

Unlike other militant groups in the tribal region, North Waziristan’s Taliban spare Pakistani security personnel and focus on raids against NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The US has pressed Pakistan for an offensive in North Waziristan where militants led by Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani have carried out deadly attacks in eastern Afghanistan.

But Islamabad says it lacks resources to expand military action into North Waziristan when tens of thousands of its troops are engaged in fighting Taliban in other tribal districts and the adjoining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly known as North-West Frontier Province.