LADHA: Five suspected militants have been killed and three soldiers injured in clashes in South Waziristan.

According to an ISPR statement, the militants were killed in a clash in Sarang Ziarat area of Sarokai tehsil.

The soldiers were injured in a separate clash, it said.

Intelligence sources said security personnel had taken two of the bodies into custody while the remaining had been taken away by fleeing militants.

The injured soldiers were airlifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Wana.

Security forces launched a search operation in the area after the clash to clear it of militants.

A spokesman for the Mehsud Taliban group, Azam Tariq, contacted local reporters and claimed that nine security personnel had been killed in an attack on Zaray Zhawar post in a remote mountainous area of Ladha tehsil and five had been shot dead by militant snipers in Mantoi area of Sarang Baba Ziarat.