Dozens of armed Pakistani militants attacked a mosque and a police checkpoint in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing two anti-Taliban fighters, police said Wednesday.
In the first attack, ten militants from Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam) raided a mosque on Tuesday in Adezai village, on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing two militia men while they were praying.
An hour later, about 100 insurgents from the Army of Islam fired on a police post in Sarband village, on the western edge of Peshawar, leading to a 40-minute gunfight but no injuries.
"They were Mangal Bagh's people," Mohammad Karim Khan, a senior police official, said.
He said the group came from the lawless Khyber tribal district before fleeing the scene of both attacks.
Fahimuddin, head of the anti-Taliban militia in Adezai village, confirmed the attacks.
Mangal Bagh is head of the Army of Islam, accused by officials of running torture centres and private jails and meting out brutal Taliban-style justice in some parts of Khyber.
Bagh himself escaped to the remote mountains on the border with Afghanistan after an offensive by
Pakistani troops late last year.
Khyber is on the main land route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where international troops are battling a nearly nine-year Taliban insurgency.
Pakistan's northwest and tribal areas have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters sought refuge there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
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