Non-Subscriber Extract
Taliban fort assault highlights vulnerability of Pakistani troops
By Farhan Bokhari
21 January 2008
Taliban militants fighting Pakistan's armed forces in a remote region along the Afghan border have abandoned a paramilitary fort they had previously seized from Pakistani forces.
In the latest setback for the Pakistani military, Taliban militants attacked the Sararogha fort in south Waziristan before sunrise on 15 January 2008, blowing up one of the fort's walls and seizing control from the 42 paramilitary troops stationed inside.
The Pakistani military claimed that at least 40 Taliban militants were killed, while acknowledging the deaths of seven Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in the encounter.
Twenty paramilitary troops from the Frontier Constabulary (FC) were unaccounted for, although another 15 managed to escape. The army was searching for the missing men, a government official told Jane's.
Analysts warned that the attack on the Sararogha fort highlighted the vulnerability of the 120,000 Pakistani troops deployed along the Afghan border. "The security situation has to improve before you can be certain that Pakistani forces are in control of most of the region," Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani commentator on defence affairs, told Jane's.