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Five killed in fighting in Pakistan

By Reza Sayah, CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Militants tried to attack a military camp in Pakistan
  • Five of the suspects were killed
  • The military camp was in the city of Mardan

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Five militants were killed Tuesday morning when security forces thwarted a planned attack targeting a military training camp in northwest Pakistan, intelligence officials told CNN.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said security forces opened fire on the militants as they were scaling one of the camp walls around 6 a.m.Tuesday morning. Three of the attackers, who were strapped with suicide vests, blew themselves up during the gunfight, officials said. They said security forces shot and killed two militants.

Another two militants remain at large.The training camp is located in Mardan, a city in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Officials said hundreds of newly recruited soldiers where at the camp when the attack took place. Four security personnel, two cadets and two instructors were injured during the attack.The officials asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

In other events, Pakistani jet fighters and helicopters pounded militant hideouts with air strikes on Monday killing 42 suspected militants, two Pakistani intelligence officials told CNN.

The officials said the militant hideouts were located in Orakzai and Kurram, two of the seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border. In March, the Pakistan military launched an offensive in Orakzai to flush out foreign and Pakistani militants who had escaped an earlier offensive in South Waziristan.

Media access to the tribal region is restricted so it is nearly impossible to verify military accounts of the fighting there.The officials asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media.