At least 24 people were killed and more than a dozen injured Thursday in a Taliban attack on a security post and a separate bombing in north-western Pakistan, security officials said. According to dpa, dozens of militants armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades raided the post in the Makeen area of South Waziristan, one of seven lawless tribal districts along the Afghan border. "The fighting went on for hours, during which our eight soldiers were martyred while 13 were wounded," said a local intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "In retaliatory fire, the enemy lost 12 men and 10 were injured." A few hours after the raid, a bomb exploded in the adjoining province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, killing four people. Ejaz Khan, a senior police official, said that the bomb planted by the roadside about 20 kilometers south-east of the provincial capital Peshawar hit a pick-up van carrying five passengers. "We have received four dead and three injured here so far," said Rahim Jan Afridi, a doctor in Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar.
