Pakistan Kills 6 Militants from Afghanistan

Pakistani security officials on Monday said dozens of militants infiltrated the Afghan border to attack a check post in a restive northwestern district for the second time in eight days.

Officials said six militants were killed in the incident on Sunday, the latest attack to raise questions about whether Pakistani Taliban have regrouped in Afghanistan since escaping an army offensive three years ago.

The militants were killed after crossing into Sabir Killey village in the Soni Darr area of Upper Dir district and one of the officials told Agence France Presse that the "firefight continued late into the night".

Another official said there were reports that "hundreds of militants" were gathering in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar and might try to infiltrate again.

"Authorities have alerted local lashkars (tribal militia) amid fears of a bigger clash," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Intelligence officials say the attackers are loyalists of Pakistani cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who fled into Afghanistan when the army recaptured the Swat valley after a two-year Taliban insurgency ended in 2009.

Swat neighbors Upper Dir, which is a key transit route between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The valley was once a popular tourism destination and unlike the semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, lies just 100 kilometers from the capital Islamabad.

The Taliban released a video showing severed heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers who they said were killed in a similar cross-border attack on a check post in Soni Darr on June 24.

A senior official confirmed that all 17 in the video were security personnel.

Afghanistan and Pakistan trade blame for Taliban violence plaguing both sides of their porous, mountainous border.

Islamabad lodged a strong protest with Kabul over the June 24 attack. Both the Afghans and the Americans repeatedly blame Pakistan for not doing more to eliminate havens on its soil, which are used as launch pads for attacks across the border.

Last month, the U.S. commander of NATO in Afghanistan blamed the Pakistan-based Haqqani network for a siege on a lakeside hotel in Kabul that killed 18 people.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned last month that Washington was running out of patience with Pakistan over militant havens.