Islamabad, Nov 30 (DPA) Pakistani troops have killed 10 Taliban militants in the country’s restive northwestern tribal region that borders Afghanistan, a security official said Monday.
Major Fazalur Rehman, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, said the rebels died during a gunfight in Kurram, one of the eight tribal districts where Pakistani forces are carrying out assaults against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.

“Our forces also destroyed five vehicles including the vehicle of a local commander,” said Rehman.

The Kurram district is emerging as a new centre of Islamist militancy as hundreds of Taliban militants fleeing the ongoing operation in South Waziristan tribal region take refuge there.

Predominantly a Shia region, the Kurram district has seen deadly sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslim tribesmen with the Taliban supporting the latter.

In return, the Sunni militants provide Taliban militants, who are also Sunni, with shelter and facilities to launch cross-border attacks on international troops in Afghanistan.

Early this year, more than 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured in weeks of fighting between the rival Muslim groups.