KALAYA, Pakistan, April 9 (Reuters) – Pakistani troops foiled an attempt by militants to recapture a stronghold in the northwestern Orakzai region on Friday, killing at least 15 insurgents before driving them off, security officials said.

The militants launched a midnight attack in the Bezoti area in a bid to recapture a camp lost to security forces two days ago, said Colonel Tahair Ikram of the Frontier Corps.

“Over 100 militants from Orakzai and the neighbouring Khyber region attacked security forces around midnight, triggering a firefight that continued for hours,” he said.

Another security official said at least 15 militants were killed and four were captured. One soldier was wounded in the attack.

A semi-autonomous region, Orakzai has become a Taliban hub following offensives by security forces over the past year that uprooted militants from their strongholds in other parts of the mainly Pashtun northwest.

Pakistan, an important U.S. ally, has recently stepped up assaults in Orakzai, prompting militant retaliation.

Troops have killed about 250 militants in nearly two weeks of fighting in Orakzai, an early stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who is widely believed to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border in January.

Pakistani action against militants along the Afghan border is seen as crucial to U.S. efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, particularly as Washington sends more troops to fight a raging Taliban insurgency before a gradual withdrawal starts in 2011. (For more on Pakistan click on [ID:nAFPAK]

(Reporting by Hassan Mehmood and Javed Hussain; Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Sugita Katyal)