Peshawar, July 05: The Taleban claimed responsibility Saturday for a Pakistani helicopter crash that killed 26 security personnel, as helicopter gunships pounded suspected militant hideouts in the northwest.
“We shot down the helicopter,” a spokesman for Taleban insurgents based in the nearby Darra Adam Khel region told AFP.
The spokesman, identifying himself as Muhammad, said the helicopter had been targeted in retaliation for the Pakistani military operation in South Waziristan, a stronghold of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda.
The Pakistani military dismissed the Taleban claim, repeating an earlier statement that the crash was caused by a “technical fault.”
The MI-17 helicopter crashed on Friday on the border of the rugged semi-autonomous Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions and officials said nobody survived.
Pakistani warplanes and helicopter gunships pounded Taleban positions in the volatile northwest on Saturday, killing at least 12 insurgents, officials said, as the government kept up pressure on militants along the Afghan border.
Elsewhere in the northwest, clashes between tribesmen and Taleban fighters left 16 people dead in the latest violence between pro-government tribal militias and insurgents.
The government airstrikes hit three suspected militant positions in the Orakzai region, part of the rugged, lawless tribal belt along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, two security officials said.
Twelve Taleban fighters were killed and nine more were wounded, the officials said.
Islamabad has ramped up the pressure on Taleban militants across the volatile northwest in recent months. It is preparing for an offensive in South Waziristan, a region of the tribal belt where top Taleban and Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding.
The US, which launched a major offensive against the Taleban in Afghanistan this week, strongly supports Pakistan’s efforts to crack down on militants on its side of the frontier, believing it could help the US-led war in Afghanistan.
The fighting between tribesmen and militants took place in the remote Mohmand region, which also lies along the Afghan frontier.
Dozens of fighters attacked the tribal militia after receiving a warning from a council of tribal elders to leave the area, a local government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Islamabad has encouraged local tribesmen in the semiautonomous frontier areas to establish militias known as lashkars to flush out Taleban fighters blamed for attacks in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan.
-Agencies