The incident took place late Sunday when a group of militants armed with rocket launchers attacked a paramilitary Frontier Corps patrolling party in Pakistan`s northwestern Upper Dir district along the Afghan border.
"One soldier was killed and two were wounded in the attack," a Pakistani official, who requested anonymity, told AFP. "Our troops retaliated and repulsed the attack. Four militants were killed during exchange of fire."
Another security official in Peshawar said around a dozen Taliban militants were involved in the attack.
The official blamed Pakistani and Afghan Taliban militants who fled into Afghanistan after Pakistani military launched an offensive in the country`s northwestern Swat valley and adjacent districts in 2009.
This attack was the latest in a series of recent alleged cross-border incidents, many of which have raised tensions between the neighbours as the Afghan war continues to claim a high toll after 10 years.
On August 27, Taliban fighters killed 25 Pakistani troops in Chitral district in a similar cross-border attack blamed on militants who had taken refuge in Afghanistan`s Kunar and Nuristan provinces.
The Pakistani army said at the time that those believed to have co-ordinated the raid -- including Maulanah Fazlullah, a radical cleric from Swat valley -- had fled to Afghanistan after its military offensives.
The border area between the two countries is seen as highly dangerous and a sanctuary for militants who launch attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In July, more than 20 mortar shells from Afghanistan killed four Pakistani soldiers and wounded two others in South Waziristan. Pakistani officials blamed the Afghan army for the attack.
In the same month, hundreds of Afghans took to the streets to protest over cross-border rocket attacks that they claimed had killed dozens of people in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
