By DECLAN WALSH and IHSANULLAH TIPU MEHSUD

Published: August 29, 2012





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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban fighters armed with rifles and rocket launchers killed at least nine Pakistani soldiers during an ambush early on Wednesday in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, military officials and Taliban commanders said.

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Large-scale Taliban assaults against the Pakistani Army are relatively rare in South Waziristan, where the army conducted a major operation in 2009. But tensions have risen in recent weeks amid a flurry of drone strikes by the Central Intelligence Agency and speculation that the army is planning a drive into neighboring North Waziristan.

Exact details of what happened during Wednesday’s attack were unclear. A spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, said the group’s fighters killed 12 soldiers during an assault on a post in the Serwakai district.

The spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said another five soldiers had been kidnapped and were being held hostage.


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Share,print,singlepage,reprints,ad">A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said eight soldiers had been killed and six wounded during a broader “search-and-clearance” operation that targeted multiple Taliban hide-outs in the area and uncovered a major weapons cache. At least 18 militants were killed in the fighting, he said.



The conflicting accounts were typical of South and North Waziristan, where few reporters can safely operate and where both sides to the conflict manipulate the flow of information.



Since its 2009 drive into South Waziristan, the army has controlled the main roads and villages in the mountainous ethnic Mehsud areas that once formed the Pakistani Taliban’s main stronghold.



Many fighters fled into North Waziristan during the operation. But they have crept back in recent years, seizing control of pockets of territory in the hills, where they run training camps and stage attacks on military outposts and convoys.



Mr. Ehsan, the Taliban spokesman, said the purpose of the attack Wednesday was to “demonstrate that South Waziristan is not under army control.”



In recent weeks, the military high command has played down reports of a looming offensive in North Waziristan, which is dominated by the powerful Haqqani network, saying it intends to gradually step up pressure on militants based there instead.



The Pakistani Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, has largely disappeared from public view since he helped organize the suicide bombing of a C.I.A. base in Afghanistan in December 2009.



The army is eager to avoid the perception that the United States, which has long pressed for an operation against the Haqqani network, is dictating the pace of the operation.



Any offensive is likely to have major humanitarian consequences, as the operation in South Waziristan three years ago did. Then, the army drove tens of thousands of civilians into adjacent settled areas, where many still live. The Taliban recently warned Mehsud civilians against returning to their homes, apparently believing their presence could hamper militant operations in the area.