11 PAKISTANI SOLDIERS and two dozen Taliban insurgent fighters have been killed following a series of co-ordinated attacks on five government security checkpoints in the north-west of the country.

The attacks, which AFP reported involved about 150 Taliban militiamen, had targeted five Frontier Corps checkpoints near the country’s border with Afghanistan.

24 of the militants were killed in fire as backup forces arrived at army backups arrived, while the rest were able to flee to safety. They had attacked using small and heavy weapons, in clashes that MSNBC said had lasted for several hours.

The top government official in the region, Amjad Ali Khan, said 11 soldiers died in the fighting, while a dozen more were wounded.

The BBC said that Taliban sources claimed only two of their own fighters had been killed, though Khan said local officers had retrieved 24 bodies.

A Taliban spokesman said they had captured two soldiers, and retained the bodies of six.

CNN reported a separate attack when a bomb, planted on a bicycle, exploded as a police van passed by in Quetta, killing three.