5 Pak troops killed in restive gas region

Paramilitary troops were escorting employees of state-run Pakistan Petroleum Limited near the Sui gas fields in a remote corner of Baluchistan province when assailants opened fire with machineguns, Frontier Corps spokesman Colonel Rizwan Malik said.

"Four Frontier Corps men were killed and 10 others injured when saboteurs opened indiscriminate fire on Frontier Corps vehicles this morning," Malik told AFP in the Baluchistan capital Quetta, 280km northwest of Sui.

In a second attack on the same road, rockets were fired at a convoy of army officers, killing one soldier injuring another soldier, both of whom had been escorting the officers, Malik said.

Paramilitaries launched raids in a hunt for the assailants.