TIMES OF INDIA:
At least 25 pro-Taliban militants were killed on Sunday as security forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery took control of a strategic tunnel in northwestern Pakistan that had been occupied by the extremists.
Militants on Saturday occupied the Japanese-built Kohat tunnel near Darra Adam Khel town after security forces launched a major operation in the area to trace four trucks carrying ammunition that had been hijacked by the rebels.
Traffic between the key city of Kohat and Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, had been blocked after the militants captured the tunnel. Scores of vehicles had been stranded on both sides of the tunnel.
"Twenty-four militants have been killed," military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said. Two security personnel were injured in Sunday's clashes.
Security forces had cleared the area around the tunnel of militants "after fierce fighting" and the rebels were present only on "a couple of heights".
Abbas said: "The tunnel is now under the control of the security forces."
Troops used artillery, helicopter gunships and heavy machine guns to evict militants holed up in bunkers on hills overlooking the tunnel.
- MUSHARRAF IS A GOOD ALLY - HE DESERVES OUR SUPPORT.
- THAT'S WHY THE LEFTISTS ON THE MSM, IN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, AND IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT WOULD LOVE TO SEE HIM GONE - AS THEY DID THE SHAH.
It looks to me that Musharraf is becoming a good ally but only after the militants gave him little choice. He has been lukewarm in confronting them until recently. I would be more able to forgive the marshal law action if he had not taken some actions that seemed to me to be more about the ego of a control freak than about security. As long as he is fighting Taliban he is useful but in the long-term he is a liability.
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