Scores of pro-Taliban militants killed

KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO said Thursday its forces killed scores of insurgents who had crossed from Pakistan in the biggest battle of the Afghan winter, while Pakistan’s army fired artillery at trucks supplying militants on the other side of the border.

NATO tracked the suspected Taliban militants through air surveillance while the fighters were still in Pakistan. Once they crossed the frontier, NATO and Afghan soldiers attacked the two separate groups with ground fire and airstrikes during a nine-hour battle that began Wednesday evening.

Gen. Murad Ali, the Afghan army regional deputy corps commander, said the insurgents traveled into Afghanistan’s southern Paktika province with several trucks of ammunition. Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, a U.S. military spokesman, said it was likely they were going to carry out an immediate attack, given the size of the groups.

Taliban militants last year launched a record number of attacks in Afghanistan, and an estimated 4,000 people died in insurgency-related violence, the bloodiest year since the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime in 2001. Afghan and Western officials say the militants operate from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but Islamabad insists it does all it can to stop them.

The overnight offensive in Paktika province was the first major engagement of 2007 and appeared to be the largest battle since a multiday operation killed more than 500 Taliban fighters in southern Kandahar province in September.

Fitzpatrick said 130 fighters were killed or wounded in the attack, down from NATO’s initial estimate of as many as 150 dead. The Afghan Defense Ministry put the toll at 80.

It was not clear why there was such a disparity in the estimates. As is common in Afghanistan, independent confirmation of the death toll at the remote battle site was not immediately possible.

Dr. Muhammad Hanif, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said in a text message to an Associated Press reporter in Pakistan that the initial NATO figure was “a complete lie.”

It was the Pakistani army’s first reported offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region since a September peace deal between the government and pro-Taliban militants that critics say has provided a sanctuary for insurgents.