Peshawar, Pakistan (ANTARA News) - Hundreds of heavily armed Taliban besieged a Pakistani checkpost on the Afghan border for a second day Thursday, killing 28 police and six civilians in the deadliest fighting for months.

A senior police official told AFP that 500 militants, including Afghan Taliban from across the border and Pakistani Taliban, took part in the attack which began before dawn on Wednesday and continued throughout Thursday.

Police said there were reports of up to 45 militants killed in the clashes, but the information could not be confirmed independently.

Fighting was concentrated around the Shaltalu police checkpoint, surrounded by mountains and forest in the northwestern district of Upper Dir, about six kilometres (four miles) from the border with Afghanistan`s Kunar province.

Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked militants have carved out strongholds on both sides of the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a region that the United States has called one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

The Pakistani military sent reinforcements and helicopter gunships in a bid to quell the attack in an area accessible on the ground only by foot.

"Fighting is still going on in some parts near the checkpost, which was attacked by around 500 Pakistani and Afghan Taliban," regional police chief Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told AFP.

He said 34 people were killed in the attack, including 28 policemen and six civilians, among them two women and two children, who died when mortar rounds struck 15 houses. He had earlier put the death toll at 28.

Rehman said 21 security forces personnel and 11 civilians were wounded, and that there were reports of up to 45 militants killed in the fighting, AFP reported.

(SYS/M014)

Editor: Suryanto
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