Pakistani forces clash with militants

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces killed 23 Taliban fighters and lost seven of their own men during clashes on Monday, according to an army officer, while a Taliban spokesman said 17 troopers were captured.

Residents in Mohmand, a tribal agency bordering Afghanistan, said the army had opened up with artillery and helicopter gunships after the Taliban ambushed a paramilitary troop convoy.

There have been few reports of clashes in Mohmand previously, but militancy has been spreading through northwest Pakistan since mid-2007, after commandos stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque to crush a Taliban-style movement that had sprung up in the capital.

"The fighting broke out at 7:30 when militants attacked a paramilitary convoy," said the officer, who requested anonymity.

The convoy was heading to Mohmand's main town of Ghalanai when it came under fire.

Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan, denied any of the Islamist fighters were killed, and said that seven soldiers had been killed and 17 taken prisoner.

"We'll not stop our fight until the government withdraws forces and ends operations in tribal regions and Swat," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The army has been locked in a bloody confrontation for the past three months with militants led by a radical cleric who wants to impose Islamic Sharia law in Swat, a scenic valley in North West Frontier Province.

Mohmand is one of seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies and adjoins Bajaur, an agency regarded as a hotbed of support for groups allied to al Qaeda.

Further west in South Waziristan, one of the most restive trial regions, a council meeting of the Wazir tribe decided on Monday to assemble a force of 600 tribesmen on Tuesday to fight foreign militants and anyone harboring them.

"We will give a deadline of three days for anyone providing shelter to foreigners to stop. Otherwise, we'll take action against them," a tribal elder told Reuters in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

Tribesmen killed four Uzbek militants in South Waziristan over the weekend.

(Reporting by Kamran Haider; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)