PESHAWAR: A prolonged militant attack on a remote checkpoint in northwest Pakistan killed 23 policemen and five civilians on the border with Afghanistan, police officials said Thursday.
Hundreds of heavily armed militants on Wednesday besieged a Pakistani post manned by police in Shaltalu in the district of Dir, where Pakistan sought to put down a Taliban insurgency two years ago.
"We have so far found 23 dead bodies of policemen, who had been killed in the attack that militants launched early Wednesday morning," senior police official, Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told AFP.
He said that five civilians, including two women, were also killed when mortars fired by militants targeting the post landed in nearby houses.
Clashes were continuing Thursday morning, police said.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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