By IRNA,
Islamabad : Taliban fighters forced Pakistani soldiers to retreat from a militant stronghold near the border with Afghanistan over the weekend, after a three-day battle sent civilians fleeing from government air strikes.
The pullback from Bajaur, an area of Pakistan’s tribal region where the Taliban and al Qaeda have forged particularly close ties, came after the military launched an offensive there late last week.
Military spokesmen said that 6 soldiers had been killed, though the Taliban put the number at 22. It was unclear how many civilians had died.
The clash was the second between government forces and the Taliban in the past two weeks. The army has been trying to push the Taliban out of Swat, an area east of the tribal region where a two-month-old peace agreement between the government of the North-West Frontier Province and the Taliban is in shreds.
There was some speculation among Pakistanis that the sudden offensive in Bajaur was aimed at satisfying the Bush administration, which has increasingly criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to stop Taliban fighters from crossing the border into Afghanistan to attack American soldiers.
The Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force commanded by the Pakistani army, tried to take back a strategic military post in Bajaur that the Taliban had captured earlier this year.
The post, Lowi Sam, is roughly 20 miles from Damadola, the Pakistani town on the border that the United States bombed in January 2006 in the belief that it would hit the Qaeda deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. The strike set off protests across Pakistan.
Lowi Sam has strategic significance because it provides access to a pass that leads to Kunar Province in Afghanistan.