LANDI KOTAL, July 20: Four personnel of the Frontier Corps and 15 Taliban were killed during an operation against militants in Akkakhel area of Khyber Agency on Saturday.

Codenamed Khyber-2, the operation was launched against Taliban hideouts in Zawa and Khurmatung areas of Akkakhel in Bara on Friday after insurgents bombed a checkpost of the security forces, killing two Frontier Corps personnel.

Of the four FC personnel slain in the operation, one was identified as Manzoor. His body was taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Kohat. The three others remained unidentified.

Military sources said that nine militants were killed on Friday and six more on Saturday. Security forces also took control of two important heights of Surgarh and Shergarh in Zawa area.

The clashes on Saturday left two soldiers dead, taking the death toll of FC personnel to four in two days of clashes.

The sources said the military used helicopter gunships to destroy two Taliban hideouts and give cover to the advancing ground forces.

Another report put the militant death toll at 22. The death toll could not be verified from independent sources, our correspondent in Kohat added.

Agencies add: The area was being used by militants to put pressure on the provincial capital. In recent weeks, police and military posts in and around Peshawar have come under attack.

The key area straddles the Nato supply line into Afghanistan, used by US-led troops to evacuate military equipment ahead of their 2014 withdrawal.

Security forces have been fighting for years against homegrown insurgents in the tribal belt, which Washington considers the hub of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.