Pakistani officials said Monday that dozens of Taliban militants entered northwest Pakistan from Afghanistan and attacked a military checkpoint. One soldier and at least two militants were killed in the attack.

Villagers from Kitkot in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajaur, where the attack took place, said the militants launched the attack with mortar and rocket fire and that the fighting lasted several hours. Pakistani security forces pushed the insurgents back into Afghanistan.

The attack was the latest in a series of alleged cross-border incidents that have raised tensions between the two neighbors.

Afghan officials say the Pakistani military has been routinely shelling villages in Afghanistan's remote mountainous border region. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has complained to NATO and Pakistan that more than 470 Pakistani rockets hit Afghanistan recently, killing many civilians.

Also Monday, the Pakistani army said it launched an air and ground offensive in the Kurram tribal region bordering Afghanistan in order to clear the area of militants and reopen a road connecting the upper and lower parts of the district.