Clashes kill 22 militants, 2 troops in NW Pakistan

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Militants launch frequent attacks on supplies for US and NATO-led forces fighting against Taliban insurgents.

PARACHINAR, (Pakistan) Jan 23 (agencies): Militants ambushed Pakistani security forces at checkpoints near the Afghan border Saturday, sparking gunbattles that left 22 insurgents and two troops dead, officials said.
Government officials Mohammad Yasin and Mohammad Naseem said two more troops were wounded in the clashes in the Orakzai and Kurram tribal regions. They said a search and clearance operation launched after the clashes also seized 25 suspected insurgents.
Many militants fleeing a Pakistani military offensive in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan have ended up in the two regions, where they often target government forces.
Washington has welcomed the military campaign but is pushing the Pakistani army to do more to target the Taliban blamed for violence across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army has said it is too taxed to launch another operation right now.
"We have gone in Orakzai and Kurram because they were affecting our operations in South Waziristan," Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told DawnNews TV Friday night. "We are too thin on the ground. We are too over stretched. It is not possible to get into any other area for operations."
The army deployed some 30,000 troops against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October and has retaken many towns in the region. But many fear the militants have just set up in other parts of the vast, lawless border regions and will continue to threaten the Pakistani government and US troops in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile: Taliban militants Saturday attacked and destroyed a fuel tanker in northwest Pakistan supplying NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, police said.
A group of 15 armed militants ambushed the truck outside Peshawar and opened fire.
"They ordered the driver and the assistant to get down and set the tanker on fire early Saturday morning," senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan told AFP.
Khan blamed the attack on Taliban militants, saying, "they have been carrying out similar attacks in the past."
Another police official, Ali Khan also confirmed the incident and said the militants fled after the attack.
Militants launch frequent attacks on supplies for US and NATO-led forces fighting against Taliban insurgents across the border.
International troops in landlocked Afghanistan are hugely dependent on Pakistan for supplies, with about 80 percent passing through Pakistan.
The bulk of equipment required by foreign troops is shipped through the troubled Khyber tribal region of northwest Pakistan.
US officials say northwest Pakistan has become a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and have regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops across the border.
Another report adds: Pakistan is unlikely to take strong military action against the terrorists as desired by the Obama administration because it is not willing to forgo the option of using extremists as "tools" against India after the US leaves the region, a prominent thinktank said.