Pakistani troops kill 19 militants; United States backs Musharraf’s efforts

Six rebels died in a gunbattle Sunday after they ambushed a troop convoy with a roadside bomb in the tribal agency of North Waziristan, and 11 soldiers were wounded later in two separate bomb blasts, security officials said.

Troops also killed 13 pro-Taliban fighters in overnight clashes after the rebels attacked several military checkpoints in the lawless region, where authorities were trying to revive a 10-month-old peace deal.

Fighting in the rugged border lands has intensified amid a nationwide wave of Islamist bloodshed that has killed more than 200 people, sparked by the army’s storming of the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad earlier this month.

U.S. President George W. Bush in his weekly radio address on Saturday linked the U.S. global campaign against al-Qaida to Pakistan’s efforts to quell Islamist violence, including the deadly storming of the pro-Taliban mosque.

Bush expressed his full support for embattled President Pervez Musharraf’s efforts “to rid all of Pakistan of extremism” including an al-Qaida “safe haven” in western tribal areas. In the first attack on Saturday night in North Waziristan, chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said four “miscreants” were killed when they attacked a checkpoint and security forces returned fire.

“After some time they attacked five other security posts in the area and nine other militants were killed,” Arshad told AFP. “The miscreants have fled with the bodies, but security forces have arrested seven people.”

In another attack Sunday, seven soldiers were wounded when a roadside improvised explosive device (IED) hit their convoy as it passed a village six kilometres (four miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.

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