Tribal leader among four killed in Pakistani blast

WANA, Pakistan, Nov 10 (Reuters) A pro-government tribal leader in a Pakistani region on the Afghan border was today killed along with three colleagues when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle, government officials said.

Dozens of tribal leaders who support the government of US ally President Pervez Musharraf have been killed in Pakistan's tribal belt since Pakistani forces began trying to clear the area of militants in 2003 as part of the war on terrorism.

Tribal leader Khan Jan and his three colleagues were killed while travelling in the South Waziristan region. Two men in his car were wounded, said government and security officials in Wana, the region's main town.

Hundreds of government troops and militants have been killed in sporadic clashes in South Waziristan since 2003, when Musharraf said he wanted to clear the area of foreign militants.

Many militants took refuge in the area after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001. Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere along the remote, mountainous frontier.

A suicide bomber killed 42 Pakistani soldiers in an attack in a town to the north of Waziristan on Wednesday.

Security officials said that attack was believed to have been revenge for an assault by security forces on a religious school in an another border region last week in which authorities said about 80 militants were killed.

Taliban insurgents fighting NATO and government troops in Afghanistan also operate from the ethnic Pashtun tribal lands along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier.

REUTERS SB PM2152