MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan, AP – Seven soldiers were killed early Tuesday in a rocket attack on their mountaintop military post near Afghanistan, security officials said.

Attacks of the kind have become frequent along the border, where Pakistan has placed around 70,000 troops and paramilitary forces to weed out al-Qaida and Taliban sympathizers.

Two soldiers were wounded in the attack in Sarbandki, a village east of Miran Shah, the main town in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.

The security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with policy, said the attack began around midnight and continued until dawn Tuesday. The assailants were unknown.

Earlier Monday assailants fired rockets and exchanged gunfire with troops at a security checkpoint west of Miran Shah, injuring three Pakistani soldiers.

Last week, eight soldiers were killed in an assault on another checkpoint.

Last month, a senior al-Qaida suspect from Egypt, Hamza Rabia, was killed in the area. Pakistan denied residents’ claims that he died in a U.S. missile strike.