60 infiltrating from Pakistan killed

AP/Washington Post:

NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 60 insurgents near the border with Pakistan, in what was described as the largest insurgent formation crossing the region in six months, the military said Saturday.

Pakistan's army said a rocket fired during the battle hit a house on its side of the border, killing nine civilians. It denied any insurgents had crossed the frontier.

Extra troops have been deployed on both sides of the mountainous frontier in an attempt to prevent militants who find sanctuary in Pakistan's wild tribal regions from mounting crossborder raids and sustaining the five-year-old war.

NATO said militants attacked Afghan and alliance troops late Friday in the Bermel district of Paktika province. NATO and U.S.-led forces returned fire, killing about 60 fighters, an alliance statement said.

"These individuals clearly had weapons and used them against our aircraft as well as shooting rockets against our positions ... This required their removal from the battle-space," Col. Martin P. Schweitzer, a U.S. commander, said in a statement.

Schweitzer said some munitions fired in the clash might have landed over the border in Pakistan, but insisted his forces only targeted "bad guys."

...

We appear to be getting better at detecting enemy infiltration into Pakistan. Earlier this years we killed around 130 in a similar attack against forces coming from Pakistan. The Taliban continue to have difficulty massing troops for even basic operations. There use of human bomb attacks has not increased their effectiveness against our forces and it continues to attrite their forces. There ambushes have proved to be just as suicidal for them.