Pakistani Taliban capture at least 22 soldiers The attackers, armed with heavy weapons including mortars and rocket launchers, struck before dawn at the two militia posts outside Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan, close to the restive tribal areas that border Afghanistan. "The exchange of gunfire lasted about one hour in which they killed two soldiers, wounded one and took away 22 others," said Naveed Akbar, a local administration official. Taliban and other Pakistani sources put the number of captured soldiers much higher. There has been a surge in attacks in northwest Pakistan in the past two weeks, including a suicide bombing on a political meeting in Peshawar on Saturday that killed Bashir Bilour, the second top politician in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, saying Mr Bilour, an outspoken critic of the militants, was assassinated in revenge for the death of one of the movement's "elders." It was not immediately clear whether the rise in the number of attacks was connected to speculation that the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, is losing control to his deputy. On Thursday, two Taliban spokesmen laid out conditions for a ceasefire with the Pakistani government that included the adoption of Islamic law, renouncing the alliance with the United States and halting any involvement in Afghanistan. Pakistan has lost more than 3,000 soldiers in the fight against home-grown insurgents but has resisted US pressure to do more to eliminate havens used by those fighting the Americans in Afghanistan.