Short update on the goings on in Pakistan’s norther Waziristan Province:

Security forces have killed 16 miscreants and apprehended 19 others in North Waziristan Agency, says a military statement issued in Peshawar on Wednesday. However, militants have denied the claim of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) and said four soldiers and five militants had been killed in overnight attacks and subsequent military action in two different places in the North Waziristan Agency on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Five army men were injured in the fight.
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Sources said the forest stretch covering a big part of the Shawal valley was considered a stronghold of the militants. The area remained under heavy artillery fire for more than seven hours.

Gun battle started early this morning after militants attacked a checkpoint in Manra area of Shawal on Tuesday night, which left four soldiers dead and three others wounded.

Following the overnight attack, troops backed by helicopters and artillery launched intense operation in the mountainous area.

Officials said the gun battle had begun at 6am and continued till 2pm, during which the Cobra helicopters had heavily bombed militants’ hideouts.

Heavy shelling had forced non-combatants to shift to safe places, a source said. Security forces, the ISPR said, had destroyed huge cache of arms and ammunition during the search operation of suspected compounds.

All we need to do is keep the pressure on them, which is what the US is evidentally proposing to Afghanistan and Pakistan:

Pakistan and Afghanistan must cooperate to defeat the “common enemy” of the Taliban and Islamic extremists that control the shared border, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

Boucher, who visited Afghanistan earlier in the week, met Wednesday with Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

He added: “The only way to stop this is to have cooperation.”

More here.