(RTTNews) - Taliban militants hit back Monday at Pakistani security forces consolidating their position after expelling militants from their strongholds in South Waziristan.

Islamist insurgents fired rockets at a security post in Makeen, killing four soldiers and injuring another. The army said in a statement Monday that eight militants died when its troops opened fire in retaliation.

It comes a few days after the military claimed to have cleared a large part of Makeen, the militants' bastion and hometown of slain Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
In another incident, two Pakistani troops were killed in a road-side bomb-explosion near an army vehicle in the tribal district of Bajaur in the restive north-western region.

With this, the number of soldiers killed in an all-out military offensive, launched on October 17, rose to 46. The insurgents death toll reached 486.

Earlier in the day, a suicide-bomber on a rickshaw blew himself up at a checkpoint in Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). A constable, a passerby and the rickshaw driver were killed in the explosion.

by RTT Staff Writer

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