The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Khar

Pakistani forces have killed 1,500 Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants during a two-month operation in a remote tribal zone, while 73 troops have also been killed, the military said Saturday.

In the offensive launched in early August in the troubled region of Bajaur, bordering Afghanistan, troops also captured a major strategic town at the centre of militant supply routes, it said.

Islamabad has previously hailed its operation in Bajaur as proof that it is responding to US and Afghan demands to take action against extremists in Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas.

"More than 1,500 militants have been killed during the operation and security forces have gained major successes," Major General Tariq Khan, head of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), told reporters visiting the region.

"Some 42 army men and 31 FC men embraced martyrdom," Khan told a press conference in Khar, the main town in Bajaur, adding that "172 regular troops were injured while 95 FC men were wounded in the fighting".

He said the key town of Loisam, whose capture by hundreds of militants in early August sparked the operation, "has been captured after stiff resistance".

Another reports adds: U.S. special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides of the border with Afghanistan.

The sensitive mission puts rare American boots on the ground in a key theater in the war against extremist groups, but it risks fanning anti-U.S. sentiment among Pakistani Muslims already angry over suspected CIA missile attacks on militants in the same frontier region.

"The American special forces failed in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ameerul Azim, an official in the hard-line Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami. "Those who failed everywhere cannot train our people."

Despite such complaints, the training program comes as some tribes in the frontier zone are setting up militias to help the Pakistani government combat extremist movements. The new forces have been compared to the Sunni Arab militias in Iraq that helped beat back the insurgency there.

Still, the U.S. training program is reportedly smaller than originally proposed and was delayed, apparently reflecting misgivings in Pakistan's government about allowing U.S. troops on its territory.