At least 10 soldiers were killed and 26 wounded Wednesday when - militants ambushed an army convoy in volatile western tribal region, with 15 attackers also killed in subsequent fighting, officials said.
The 25-vehicle convoy was en route from Miranshah to the town of Razmak when militants targeted it with several rockets from their positions in the nearby mountains. "Six soldiers died at the spot and 24 were wounded. Four more troops succumbed to injuries at the hospital," a local security official said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said eight vehicles were completely destroyed in the attack. Security forces retaliated almost immediately, with helicopter gunships dispatched to the area and soldiers within the besieged convoy also firing back, killing 15 militants.
Earlier in the day, the same security convoy was targeted with a roadside bomb in Tal Kalay area that left six soldiers injured. Local militants accepted the responsibility for the raid. "Forty soldiers were killed and several others injured," claimed their spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmdi. Chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad had earlier confirmed only 21 deaths, six of them soldiers and 15 militants.