World Digest: Pakistani troops attack 2 Taliban strongholds

PAKISTAN

Taliban strongholds attacked, army says

Pakistani soldiers closed in on two major Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan on Saturday, officials said, as government jets pounded insurgent hideouts elsewhere in the northwest, and the prime minister said the country had no choice but to defeat the militants.

"We are at war," Yousaf Raza Gillani said at a news conference in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where a car bombing last week killed more than 115 people. "Our civil leadership, our military leadership and political leadership . . . we are on the same page: that we have to fight the militancy. We do not have any other option because their intentions are to take over" the country.

Two weeks ago, the government launched the offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region, viewed as the main stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda along the Afghan border. The offensive has led to retaliatory militant attacks across Pakistan.

On Saturday, seven paramilitary soldiers driving through the Khyber tribal area were killed in a roadside bombing carried out by suspected Taliban militants, a local official said. The famed Khyber Pass is the main route for ferrying supplies to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

That attack came as Pakistani jets bombed three hideouts of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the Orakzai tribal region, killing at least eight militants and wounding several others, intelligence officials said. Another airstrike killed seven militants in the Kurram tribal region, the officials said.

The veracity of the reports could not be confirmed.

-- Associated Press

RUSSIA

11 killed in violence in North Caucasus

Ten suspected militants and a police officer have been killed in the volatile southern provinces of Dagestan and Chechnya in three incidents, officials said.