Death Toll Reaches 47 at Pakistani Fort

Taliban militants who overran a northwestern Pakistani military outpost Thursday abandoned it hours later, an army spokesman said.

The insurgents descended on the fortification in South Waziristan but were repelled by the 42 Pakistani government troops posted there. The militants returned with as many as 200 fighters and overran the facility, The Washington Post reported.

The second attack was more fierce and more intense, said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a Pakistani military spokesman.

After the attackers blew holes in the fort’s outer walls with explosives there was hand-to-hand fighting, the report said.

The army said seven soldiers were killed in the attack and 15 men were missing, while a Taliban spokesman told the BBC by telephone 16 troops had been killed and another 12 captured during the fighting.

The broadcaster said the militants abandoned the fort as they would have been easy targets for airstrikes by the Pakistani military.