By DPA
Islamabad : Three Islamic militants and two policemen were killed Saturday in a gunfight that continued for several hours in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP, officials said.
The shootout was triggered when the police conducted a pre-dawn raid at a militant hideout in Mora village of Mardan district.
“As the police party approached the compound, the militants opened fire on it with assault rifles. One policeman was shot in the head and he succumbed to his injuries at the hospital,” district police officer Yamin Khan said.
Another police officer and three militants died later in the gun battle that continued for around nine hours. The militants used women and children as human shields, he said.
The NWFP has recently seen a surge in violence. Hundreds of people, many of them security personnel, died in the bombing campaign by Islamic militants in 2007.
The death toll in the latest suicide attack Friday at a security check post in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan district rose to seven as one more security man succumbed to injuries Saturday.
According to local security officials, Al Qaeda was behind the bombing that occurred around five kilometres from the house where its top operative Abu Laith Al Libi and eleven other militants were killed on Tuesday in a pre-dawn missile attack. A US predator drone had apparently fired the missile.
Thousands of Al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters fled to Pakistan’s tribal area after the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001. They use the region to launch cross border attacks on international forces in the war-torn country.