PESHAWAR PAKISTANI officials said troops on Sunday shot dead at least seven militants who infiltrated the northwestern district of Swat to escape an offensive in the neighbouring tribal belt.

The gunfight took place when troops intercepted the group trying to enter the Dherai area of Swat, where Pakistan carried out a sweeping military operation in 2009 that brought to an end two years of local Taliban control.

When militants were ordered to stop and identify themselves they fired back and wounded two soldiers, a military statement said.

“Resultantly own troops engaged them and killed all of them,” it said.

Six small machine guns and eight hand grenades were recovered, it added.

The military said the insurgents were reportedly fleeing Mohmand, where Pakistan is waging an air and ground offensive against homegrown Taliban blamed for near-daily bomb attacks in the northwest.

Swat police chief Qazi Ghulam Farooq and local intelligence officials confirmed the clash and death toll.

Taliban militants led by cleric Maulana Fazlullah took control of the scenic Swat valley in 2007.

But the army retook Swat after launching a major offensive against the Taliban in 2009 which displaced an estimated two million people.

More than 4,200 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks, which are based in the tribal belt, since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.

A White House report last week criticised Pakistan for having no clear path to triumph over insurgents and noted a deterioration in Pakistan’s tribal belt on the Afghan border, where Taliban and Al Qaeda have carved out strongholds.