Nine killed in attack on security force convoy

QUETTA: Attacks killed nine soldiers on Tuesday, targeting troops in the near Afghanistan and further south on the border with Iran, officials said.

The deadliest attack killed five paramilitary troops travelling in a routine convoy between the towns of Turbat and Mand, some 680 kilometers (370 miles) southwest of Quetta, the capital city of Baluchistan province.

"Five paramilitary soldiers were martyred and five others were wounded in the bomb blast," a paramilitary commander told AFP.

The convoy was en route to a remote border base near the town of Mand, he said requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Local police and security officials confirmed the attack and toll.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Baluchistan has seen a recent upswing in violence linked to a separatist insurgency, sectarian violence and Islamist militancy.

A Swiss couple, who were abducted in Baluchistan on Friday, are now believed to have been smuggled into Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, a notorious haven for Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

In the tribal belt, three soldiers were killed in North Waziristan, considered a leading militant fortress and where Pakistan is under huge US pressure to launch an offensive against the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network.

Officials said a bomb was detonated by remote-control near Miranshah, the main town in the tribal district, soon after the convoy left for the town of Datta Khel, ripping through a truck carrying army and paramilitary troops.

"Three soldiers were killed and 15 wounded," an intelligence official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Another security official said the bomb was planted in a drain near the market in Miranshah and exploded at a time when authorities had imposed a routine curfew so the military convoy could go past.

In the neighbouring district of South Waziristan, a paramilitary soldier was killed when Taliban militants attacked a checkpost in the Makeen area, security officials in the main northwestern city of Peshawar said.

Pakistan has been under huge pressure to do more to destroy militant sanctuaries, particularly in North Waziristan, since US Navy SEALs found and killed Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad on May 2.

But military commanders argue that any operation should be of their choosing, arguing that its 140,000 troops already committed to the northwest are too overstretched fighting a homegrown insurgency to take on the Haqqanis.

On Monday, the military announced the start of an operation in Kurram designed to clear out militants and suicide bombers who have taken refuge there, and open up the main road dissecting the tribal district.

Few details have emerged, however, of how the campaign is progressing.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011