MIRAMSHAH, Sept 17: Army troops have started operation against militants in Dua Toi and Goor Waik areas of the North Waziristan Agency on Saturday after cordoning off several residential compounds along the porous Afghan border, military sources said.

The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in Peshawar that security forces launched the operation early in the morning and arrested nine militants.

“The arrested persons were wanted to the security forces,” an official of the ISRP told Dawn, declining to disclose identity of the detained persons. They were shifted to a military camp in Miramshah, the agency’s headquarters, he said.

A source informed on condition of anonymity that the arrested persons belonged to Punjab and upper parts of the NWFP.

About 1,000 army, paramilitary troops and personnel of the Quick Reaction Force conducted operation in the rugged area. They cordoned off several residential compounds in Dua Toi and Goor Waik areas in Datakhel tehsil close to Afghanistan’s Paktika province.

The armed forces also engaged four helicopter gunships in the 11-hour long search operation, while transport helicopters ferried troops to the area, 45km west of Miramshah.

Sources said that four residential compounds were searched in Dua Toi area and heavy arms and ammunition were recovered from the mud-houses.

Commander 11th Corps Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain, who has been camping in the area for the last few days, supervised the operation.

The ISPR said that the army troops were carrying out round-the-clock patrols along the border ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.

The army troops have taken precautionary measures and set up 761 checkpoints over a stretch of 600 kilometres of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to foil any attempt of sabotage across the border.

Helicopter gunship and surveillance aircraft have also been employed to conduct aerial surveillance of the border.

Paramilitary forces sealed entry points along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the Bajaur Agency and beefed up security in the area, Anwarullah Khan adds from Khar.