PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pro-Taliban militants attacked a paramilitary camp in northwestern Pakistan overnight in a clash that wounded a dozen soldiers, officials said Thursday.

One militant was killed in the hour-long shootout following the raid on the fort by more than a dozen heavily armed men outside the town of Hangu, local police chief Ghulam Mohammad said.

He said they attacked with rockets, hand grenades and Kalashnikov rifles, but were beaten off.

A military spokesman confirmed the clash but had no immediate details.

The attack, which came in the midst of a spike in violence in the region, shattered windows of the two-storey British era fort, he said.

The police official said the body of a militant killed in the fighting was lying in the fort. Others fled in the darkness.

He said the attackers were thought to come from the nearby tribal region of North Waziristan where the army is hunting pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who fled Afghanistan after a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Clashes between militants and the security forces have intensified in the lawless tribal regions since the breakdown in July of a peace deal signed by authorities and pro-Taliban groups last September.