Suicide bomber kills 6 Pakistani troops in Waziristan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 26 (Reuters) A suicide car bomber rammed a Pakistani paramilitary checkpost today, killing six troopers in a tribal region where the army has been fighting al Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants for months, officials said.

The attack in North Waziristan came a day after a militant commander said a month-long ceasefire had been called to give time for tribal elders to broker a settlement to end the conflict in the semi-autonomous region.

''It was an attempt to sabotage our call for a ceasefire. Local Taliban have no connection with this attack,'' Abdullah Farhad, the militant commander, who declared the ceasefire, told Reuters.

Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said six paramilitary troops were killed in the attack and several more were wounded, some of them seriously.

Security forces have killed more than 300 militants, including 75 foreigners, in North Waziristan since last year, after the military switched its offensive from South Waziristan.

Several Arab lieutenants of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden have been killed in North Waziristan, and US drone aircraft have carried out missile strikes on al Qaeda targets from across the border in Afghanistan.

TRIBAL COUNCIL CALLED The car bomber struck as a paramilitary convoy pulled up at the Esha checkpost, some 12 km from Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, on the road to the town of Bannu.

''It was a white car and only one person, the driver, was in it,'' an intelligence official said.

The approach to the site of the suicide attack, around 300 km southwest of Islamabad, was cordoned off.

Fighting in North Waziristan escalated dramatically in March after militant Muslim clerics called on tribesmen to take up arms following a missile strike by Pakistani helicopters on a large al Qaeda camp close to the Afghan border.

Pakistan has some 80,000 regular army troops on the border with Afghanistan, most of them deployed in North and South Waziristan where al Qaeda-linked militants have been operating alongside Taliban and tribal sympathisers.

In neighbouring Afghanistan, some 1,100 people, including 50 foreign troops, have been killed in fighting with Taliban insurgents, and Pakistan has been asked to do more to stop the insurgency.

But most of the most recent clashes in Afghanistan have been in provinces not bordering Waziristan.

There has been growing unease in Pakistan that the military's strategy in Waziristan may result in a blowback from the fiercely independent Pashtun tribes in years to come.

The Governor of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, is trying to organise a tribal council, or jirga, to calm the tribes on the frontier.

Farhad said the militants want the government to dismantle all new checkposts in the region and troops to return to their camp, allowing tribal police to take over.

He also demanded the release of detained tribesmen and the reinstatement of officials who had been removed from their jobs in the semi-autonomous region.

REUTERS SHR VV1932