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KHAR, Pakistan : Pakistani warplanes killed at least six civilians in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan on Monday after fierce clashes in which more than 50 Taliban militants were killed, officials said.
Jets pounded suspected Islamist hideouts after rebels attacked two security posts overnight, but some bombs hit civilian houses in the Bajaur tribal zone, a known haunt of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, local security officials said.
The violence comes after a week of some of the heaviest clashes ever seen in Bajaur and as Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a call for jihad in Pakistan.
"Troops targeted militant hideouts and strongholds in Bajaur and more than 50 militants are killed," the paramilitary Frontier Corps said in a statement.
It gave no details.
A paramilitary official earlier told AFP that the "Taliban launched a big attack on Tor Ghundi fort and Iskandro post (in Bajaur). Security forces responded and 20 militants were killed."
A local security official said fighter jets and gunship helicopters were called in after the battle and carried out air strikes lasting more than three hours.
"Some of the bombs dropped by jets on suspected militants' hideouts in Tauheedabad and Damadola villages also hit many houses killing six civilians and wounding 12 others," the security official told AFP.
There was no immediate information about casualties to security forces.
Residents said the fighting erupted at 1:00 am on Monday and bodies were scattered across farmland 20 kilometres east of Khar, the main town in Bajaur.
Separately in Bajaur, militants kidnapped two men and dumped their headless bodies on Sunday with a note accusing them of "spying on Taliban activities", residents and officials said.
Pakistani military officials said on Sunday that nine soldiers and 100 militants had been killed in four days of fighting in Bajaur, a mountainous and largely forested region hugging the Afghan frontier.
Pakistan launched operations in Bajaur last week after concerns that it had become a haven for militants mounting cross border attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.
Zawahiri escaped a major US missile strike in the region in 2006.
Also on Sunday, militants shot dead a tribal elder who supported the government in South Waziristan, another restive tribal district, local administration official Muwaz Khan told AFP.
Tribesmen blocked a key road leading out of South Waziristan to protest the killing, residents said.
Islamabad has faced mounting calls from the United States and other allies to get tough on the rebels, especially after the newly elected government launched peace talks with the Taliban earlier this year.
But in a sign that the militants are also cranking up the pressure, Zawahiri, the deputy to Osama bin Laden, released his first English-language video call for jihad in Pakistan.
In the video aired on Pakistan's ARY television network Zawahiri accused Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of being "thirsty for money and a bribe-seeker," arguing that he is working to support US and Western interests.
The television channel said that parts of the tape, which was first aired on Sunday, were withheld "due to sensitivities and personal attacks."
Musharraf is facing the threat of impeachment by the ruling coalition government, causing further concern in Washington, which has counted him as a key ally in the "war on terror" since 2001. - AFP/de
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