Pakistan clash kills 8 in northwest

A clash between Pakistani troops and Taleban on Friday killed five militants and three members of a government sponsored militia in the country’s troubled northwest, security officials said. Fighting erupted after Pakistani troops and local militia launched a joint operation against Taliban in the Spindand area of Khyber tribal district, which borders Afghanistan. “Five militants and three members of the militia have been killed in the clash. Three security persons and four militia members have been wounded,” a security official told AFP. “The number of injured from the Taliban side is unknown,” he said. A local administration official in Khyber, Mutahir Zeb Khan, confirmed the clash. “The target of the operation was a local Taliban group Lashar-e-Islam. The fighting started on Thursday evening and the exchange of fire continues at short intervals,” Khan told AFP. Some 18,000 people fled their homes in Khyber in October last year amid fears of a fresh onslaught of fighting between the army and Islamist militants tied to the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan’s seven tribal districts near the Afghan border are rife with homegrown insurgents and are strongholds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives. Taliban militants have killed more than 4,800 people across Pakistan since government troops raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.