Bomb kills two pro-government Pakistan tribesmen

KHAR, Pakistan, Feb 5 (Reuters) A roadside bomb killed two pro-government tribal elders today in Pakistan's restive northwest region, near the Afghan border, officials said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajaur, the most northernly region in Pakistan's tribal belt, though al Qaeda-linked militants active in these areas have been blamed for such incidents in the past.

The tribal elders were travelling in a car through Sayed Charmangh area, some 20 km east of Bajaur's main town of Khar, when the bomb went off.

''The two men died instantly while their third colleague sustained injuries and has been hospitalised,'' a local government official said.

Bajaur and North and South Waziristan regions, which lie at the southern end of the tribal belt, pose the greatest security threat among Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Up to 20 people were killed in an airstrike by Pakistan army helicopters on a militant camp in South Waziristan last month.

A spate of suicide bombings in the capital Islamabad and several towns in northern Pakistan after that attack, killing around 28 people, raised fears that the conflict in the semi-autonomous tribal belt was spreading towards the cities.

REUTERS DKA HT1708