[Dawn] At least 12 more snuffies were killed Sunday as intense gun-battles continued between two rival groups in Pakistain's restive tribal region of Khyber agency, officials said.Fierce festivities erupted three days ago when members of the Tariq Afridi faction of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) launched an attack in the Bagh-Maidan area of Tirah valley on Friday, capturing a building belonging to the pro-government Ansarul Islam (AI) orcs.
"The Ansar-ul-Islam group re-took their centre after intense fighting," said another senior local administration official.
The approximate number of deaths from three days of fierce festivities has now reached 52. A security bigshot confirmed the approximate corpse count and said fighting was ongoing.
The area is cut off to journalists and aid workers so it was not possible to confirm the corpse count independently.
The Ansarul Islam, led by local commander Munsif Khan, opposes Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency
...'s Lashkar-e-Islam and the TTP, who frequently launches attacks on Pak troops.
Sadat Afridi, a front man for the pro-government AI, says his group has vowed to flush out TTP snuffies from Tirah valley as they "carry out attacks on mosques and public places, which is against Islam."
Khyber is among Pakistain's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts near the Afghan border, rife with homegrown forces of Evil and home to religious hard boy organizations including the al Qaeda and Taliban.
The remote Tirah valley holds strategic significance for orc groups. On one side, it shares a border with Afghanistan. On the other it leads to the plains of Bara, which connect the agency to the outskirts of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
Khyber also links several agencies to each other, serving as a north-south route within Fata. The region has been long fought over by a mix of orc groups, including the TTP, the Ansarul Islam and Mangal Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam.