Army officer, soldier killed in Pakistan capital

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – Suspected militants on a motorbike shot and killed a soldier and a senior army officer in the Pakistani capital Thursday, striking at security forces as they pressed ahead with a major anti-Taliban offensive in the northwest.

The assault in Islamabad showed the insurgents are able to hit the heart of the country despite ramped up security and deploy diverse tactics in their fight. In recent weeks, suicide bombings and raids involving teams of gunmen on a range of targets have killed more than 170 people.

The offensive in South Wazirstan is considered a critical test of the nuclear-armed Pakistan's campaign against Islamist extremists aiming to overthrow the state and involved in attacks on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Two gunmen Thursday fired on an army jeep in a residential area of the capital, police official Zaffar Abbas said. A soldier and a brigadier — a high-ranking army officer — were killed, while the driver was wounded, authorities said.

"Terrorists and extremists are behind this," Islamabad's top police officer, Syed Kalim Imam, told reporters.

The military is advancing on multiple fronts in South Waziristan, seen as a likely hiding place for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Over the past few days, they have been fighting for the hometown of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

The fight for Kotkai is strategically important because it lies on the way to the major militant base of Sararogha.

An army statement Wednesday said forces were engaged in "intense encounters" in hills surrounding Kotkai and had secured an area to its east. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said there was no significant fighting inside the town yet.

The army believes Mehsud and his deputy Qari Hussain remain in the region directing militants' defenses.

The statement Wednesday reported three more soldiers were killed, bringing the army's death toll to 16, while 15 more militants were slain, bringing their death toll to 105.

It is nearly impossible to independently verify information coming from South Waziristan because the army has closed off all roads to the region. Analysts say both sides have exaggerated successes and played down losses in the past.

The army has deployed some 30,000 troops to South Waziristan against about 12,000 Taliban militants whose ranks include up to 1,500 foreign fighters, many of them Uzbeks.

A pair of suicide bombings at a university in Islamabad on Tuesday prompted closures of schools across the country through at least the end of the week. An Interior Ministry committee is to review security at educational institutions and determine when they can open again.