Pakistani forces battled militants on multiple fronts in the country's restive northwest Thursday, including the primary base for the country's Taleban chief, officials said. More than 60 militants were reportedly killed. In South Waziristan in the country's tribal belt, about 400 militants attacked two military forts, triggering battles that killed 22 militants and three troops, the military said in a statement. Intelligence officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the militants attacked with rockets and guns. The clashes in South Waziristan, a rugged, remote region along the Afghan border where Pakistani Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud is based, came amid rumblings that the Pakistani military would launch a new offensive there on the heels of its operation in the Swat Valley. Also Thursday, army helicopter gunships targeted militant positions in the northwest Bannu, Hangu and Upper Dir regions, killing two local Taleban commanders and some of their associates, three intelligence officials said. All of the intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give information to reporters. The army said government forces secured two villages in the Upper Dir region, where a citizens' militia has been fighting the Taleban for almost a week in several towns. Some 34 militants were killed in fighting in the region, and one civilian was killed and another injured when militants fired rockets at Bannu city, the regional center, the military said. Clashes also continued in several areas of the Swat Valley, where the military launched an offensive in late April to clear out the Taleban. Verifying reports from the various fronts is nearly impossible because of the danger in the area and restrictions on journalists. Minister injured In the town of Darra Adam Khel, near Peshawar, unidentified assailants opened fire Thursday on a convoy carrying a local prisons minister, Mian Nisar Gul, wounding him and killing three of his bodyguards, said Bashir Balor, a senior official from the minister's Awami National Party. One of the attackers was also killed, he said. On Tuesday, a suicide bombing at a luxury hotel in the main northwestern city of Peshawar killed at least nine people. Also Thursday, assailants in separate attacks hurled two hand grenades in two business areas of northwestern Dera Ismail Khan town, killing one person and wounding 29 others, said Miran Shan, a local police chief. No one claimed responsibility and officers were investigating, he said. Bomb explosion A bomb also exploded in the toilet of a passenger train traveling from Quetta to Karachi in the country's southwest, killing one and wounding 35 others, police official Shamar Ali Magsi said. The Baloch Republican Army, a nationalist group fighting for greater autonomy for Balochistan province and a greater share of its oil revenues, was responsible for the blast, spokesman Sarboz Baloch said in a phone call.
