[Dawn] Militants ambushed Pak troops on Monday, killing nine soldiers in gunbattles that lasted several hours on the outskirts of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar in the northwestern tribal badlands, officials said.Peshawar is the main city in northwest Pakistain and a gateway to the semi-autonomous tribal areas on the Afghan border that Washington calls the most dangerous place on Earth and a global headquarters of al Qaeda.
Another three members of the Frontier Corps paramilitary were maimed in the attack and at least 14 Islamic fascisti killed in retaliatory fire in Bara district, in the tribal district of Khyber, which borders Afghanistan, the officials said.
"It was an ambush in the afternoon. It continued for two to three hours, and there have been casualties in the ambush. There have been killings of the hard boyz as well," military front man Major General Athar Abbas
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told AFP.
He was unable to give a casualty count, but military and political officials in the northwest said nine paramilitary troops were killed.
"The Islamic fascisti attacked FC troops during a search operation. They came and attacked from a small hill where Islamic fascisti were hiding," the political agent of Khyber, Rehan Gul Khattak, told AFP.