Five security personnel die in Taliban raid in Pakistan

Islamabad, March 17 : Three paramilitary soldiers and two policemen were killed Wednesday when Islamist insurgents raided a security post in north-western Pakistan, police said.

One more policeman was wounded in the pre-dawn assault that took place on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.

Zubair Khan, a local police official, said the attackers had come from the adjoining Khyber Agency, one of the seven districts in the militancy-plagued tribal region along the Afghan border.

The attackers opened fire on the post with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Khan said.

Islamist rebels recently launched a renewed campaign of strikes against civilian and security targets to retaliate against ongoing military offensives in their safe havens in the tribal region.

Last week, more than 100 people died and several dozen were wounded in six suicide bombings and armed raids.

The deadliest was in the eastern city of Lahore, where two suicide bombers detonated explosives near a military convoy on a busy street, killing 60 people and injuring 95.