The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Peshawar

At least 11 Pakistani troops were killed and nine wounded early Wednesday when a missile fired from Afghanistan hit their border post after clashes with Afghan forces, officials said.

The incident followed intense fighting between Pakistani paramilitary troops deployed in the troubled Mohmand tribal region and Afghan forces who claimed the area was part of their territory, the Pakistani officials said.

Troops from both countries as well as US-led and NATO forces based in Afghanistan are fighting Taliban militants in the rugged region, but relations across the frontier are often strained.

"Sometime after midnight a missile fired from the Afghan side struck our post resulting in the martyrdom of at least 11 soldiers including a commanding officer. Nine soldiers were wounded," one security official told AFP.

"The injured and the dead bodies have been retrieved. The troops are still holding on to the post."

Officials said Pakistani forces repulsed an attempt by Afghan forces to capture strategic heights in the Soran Dara area, which borders the Afghan province of Nangarhar and is claimed by Pakistan as part of its territory.

The paramilitary Frontier Corps sent reinforcements to the area on Tuesday.

Pakistani and Afghan military spokesmen were not immediately contactable while the US-led coalition in Afghanistan declined to comment.

Pakistan has protested over a series of missile strikes attributed to US-led forces in Afghanistan in recent months, including one in the tribal region of Bajaur in May that killed more than a dozen people.

Disputes over the porous, 1,500-mile (2,500-kilometre) frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan, both key allies in the US-led "war on terror," have flared up several times in recent years.

There has been also discord over allegations by foreign forces and the government in Kabul that Pakistan is going soft on the insurgents.