The toll in the pitched battles since May 9 in four sectors of Kargil -- Drass, Mushko Valley, Kaksar and the Batalik ridges -- is well above 170, with 18 soldiers dead and more than 50 injured.

The Army estimates on the basis of radio intercepts that more than a 100 infiltrators, holed up at heights between 15,000-18,000 feet, are dead and wounded.

The Northern Command's spokesperson said a section of infiltrators was likely to be from the Taliban, adding the infiltrators were on the run at a few positions in the Mushko Valley, Drass sector and the Batalik ridges. ``One or two more groups tried to run from the Batalik ridges but the Army's noose forced them to go back to the heights,'' said P P S Bindera, Major General (General Staff) atthe Northern Command headquarters at Udhampur.Bindera added, ``There has been a drastic reduction in their (the insurgents') firepower at two to three positions in Drass and the Batalik ridges as they seem to be running short of ammunition.''

Facing one of the heaviest Army offensives in recent years, involving four Brigades, Bofors guns and helicopters, the infiltrators have occupied `tactically significant' terrain in the unheld areas on both sides of the Line of Control and are armed with machine guns, Pika guns, rocket launchers and AK rifles. They are entrenched in rock bunkers called sangars, as also hutments of the graziers which have been modified into bunkers.

Bindera claimed the Army was well-placed in Drass and the Batalik ridges and was establishing pickets on the southern heights of the Mushko Nallah.

Meanwhile, heavy shelling on the road to Batalik last night has forced evacuation of two more villages, Okchmal and Chutmail, SSP Kargil Deepak Kumar said today.