Six paramilitary and security guards died when some 50 armed militants attacked a Hungarian-owned oil and gas exploration site in a province of Pakistan at midnight.

The police chief of the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said the attackers fired light and heavy weapons and mortars in an attempt to enter the remote site of the Budapest-based MOL Group near the Afghanistan border.

“The exchange of fire continued for more than an hour. Police forced the militants to flee,” district police chief Asif Bahadur told Agence France-Presse.

Bahadur said the attackers came from the nearby North Waziristan district, which borders Afghanistan and has historically been a hive of militancy.