Search on for Pakistani troops after raid

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani security forces were searching on Thursday for 15 paramilitary soldiers who went missing when hundreds of militants stormed a fort in the northwest of the country, a military spokesman said.

Militants have been blamed for a string of attacks on security forces in recent months, compounding a sense of crisis in the nuclear-armed country as President Pervez Musharraf has struggled to hold power in the face of protests from opponents.

In the latest incident, unidentified attackers fired three rockets near a Pakistani air force engineering base in Kamra town 75 km (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday but no one was hurt, military officials said.

Early on Wednesday, about 200 militants attacked the Sara Rogha fort in South Waziristan on the Afghan border. They captured it after blowing up one of its walls, the military said.

The military initially said 40 militants and seven soldiers were killed and 20 soldiers were missing, but five of the missing men were later reported to have reached villages in the area, said military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas.

"Fifteen are still missing," Abbas said. "They are looking for the men, a search operation is on."

A spokesman for the militants said on Wednesday they had killed 16 troops and captured 12 in the attack. He said only two of his men were killed. Abbas said there was no confirmation of the militants' claim that they had captured the 12.

The militants had abandoned the fort and security forces were preparing an operation to take control of it again, he said.

The area where the fort is located is a stronghold of al Qaeda-linked militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who the government said was behind the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27.

A militant spokesman said his men had captured another fort in South Waziristan. Security officials confirmed that militants had occupied the remote fort but said security forces had recently abandoned it.

Last week, militants tried to capture another fort in the region but were beaten back with the loss of up to 50 of their men, the military said.

ROCKET ATTACK

Security forces have been battling al Qaeda-linked militants in South Waziristan for several years.

In a major embarrassment for the military, militants captured about 250 soldiers in the same region in August and held most for more than two months before releasing them. The militants executed several of the men.

The government says the militants are intent on destabilising the country in the run-up to a February 18 general election that is meant to complete a transition to civilian rule.

The parliamentary elections were due to be held on January 8 but were postponed after Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack.

Militants flocked to Waziristan and other parts of the Afghan-Pakistani border in the 1980s to support Afghan guerrillas fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban members took refuge on the Pakistani side of the border after U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.

They also launch raids into Afghanistan from border sanctuaries.

As part of efforts in the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, Pakistan has been trying to expel foreign militants and subdue their Pakistani allies on the lawless border, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

All three rockets, fired from up to 8 km (five miles) away towards the air force base at Kamra, landed on open ground and caused no injuries, an air force spokesman said.

Last month, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a school bus at the same base, killing himself and wounding nine people, including several children.