Gunmen ambush Pakistani police, kill three

ISLAMABAD, June 22: Suspected Islamist militants attacked a police vehicle in a Pakistani town near the North Waziristan region killing three policemen, including an officer, police said today.

The attack, late last night, came hours after a roadside bomb killed three paramilitary troops in the region on the Afghan border where Pakistani forces are battling al Qaeda and Taliban militants and their Pakistani allies.

Gunmen ambushed a police vehicle on a routine patrol near the town of Bannu.

''They killed an inspector and two constables and took away their vehicle,'' senior police officer Mohammad Iqbal told Reuters.

Earlier yesterday, a roadside bomb hit a paramilitary convoy patrolling near the town of Mir Ali, in North Waziristan, killing three troopers and wounding another three.

Also yesterday, a military helicopter crashed into a reservoir near Bannu, killing four soldiers. The cause of the crash was being investigated but a military spokesman said it was apparently because of a technical fault.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants fled to Pakistan's semi-autonomous border region after the Taliban were ousted in Afghanistan in 2001. They were given refuge by ethnic Pashtun tribesmen who live on both sides of the border.

Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes between Pakistani forces and militants in the past two years.

Reuters