PESHAWAR, June 6: Pakistan army troops took over charge of some checkpoints on the Kohat-Parachinar road after the personnel were redeployed in the Kurram tribal agency to reinforce search for suspects and check illegal crossing of the border from the Afghanistan side.

Reports reaching here said the army troops moved into the area on Wednesday and assumed charge of Chapari and Alizai checkpoints in the Lower Kurram Agency, close to the Khost province, where coalition forces have launched a fresh operation against fugitive Taliban and Al Qaeda elements.

Besides, the troops were also deputed on various checkpoints in Kohat, Hangu and Thall to check vehicles coming from the tribal areas. The personnel of the Frontier Corps and Thall scouts are also assisting the troops in the area.

The troops, earlier deployed in different parts of the tribal territory, including both North and South Waziristan Agencies, had been withdrawn from a number of checkpoints in the Kurram Agency and the settled areas due to the ongoing stand-off between Pakistan and India.

Last week, president Gen Pervez Musharraf stated that Islamabad might pull out its troops from tribal areas, deployed along the western border to check the infiltration of Al-Qaeda suspects and Taliban from the war-battered Afghanistan.

The statement worried many a stockholder, including Washington, that the troops withdrawal from the western borders would affect the coalition forces’ operation against the fleeing Al-Qaeda men and Taliban.

The coalition forces also moved into Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province to flush out the hiding fighters of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Eyewitnesses claimed that the US troops operating in Gorako and Dor Baba areas, close to the Pakistan border, blew up many caves.