Around 27 police and paramilitary soldiers and up to 40 insurgents were killed in clashes after armed militants entered Pakistan and attacked a police checkpoint, on Wednesday.

A conflict broke out after about 200 militants crossed into Pakistan’s northwest from Afghanistan launched an attack on the outpost in a remote village in Dir region on Wednesday.

We have shifted the bodies of police and paramilitary forces to a hospital and now they are being transported to their hometowns, Murad Khan, a local police official, told Reuters. About 35 to 40 militants were killed in the conflict, he added.

Journalists are not allowed to enter the border region in the northwest, the epicenter of fighting between militants and security forces.

They (militants) have taken away the bodies of their men, said Khan.

Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda have openly pledged to take revenge from the U.S. special forces for the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2 in Abbottabad, a Pakistani town near Islamabad.

Ever since, the militants have stepped up suicide bombings, attacking paramilitary cadets, a naval base, a U.S. consulate convoy and other targets.

Government officials said army troops were deployed in Dir early on Thursday. The fighting lasted for 24 hours and it has stopped now. Our forces have regained the control of the area, a security official said.

The battle erupted after militants in military uniforms attacked the police check post on Wednesday.

Washington repeated its call for Pakistan to crack down harder on militancy, especially on groups that cross over to Afghanistan to attack Western forces, after the bin Laden's death.

Al-Qaeda Pakistan Pakistan Afghanistan