Grenade attack wounds eight Pakistani soldiers

MIRANHSHAH, Pakistan, May 4 (Reuters) Suspected al Qaeda-linked militants wounded eight Pakistani soldiers in a grenade attack on a military convoy passing through a tribal region near the Afghan border today, officials said.

The grenade was thrown at one of the vehicles near the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan region, where Taliban and al Qaeda fighters have been active in the past.

''Eight soldiers have been wounded in the grenade attack, three of them seriously,'' military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad told Reuters.

Today's attack came a week after three suspected Islamist militants were killed in an explosion in North Waziristan which Pakistani intelligence officials, who declined to be named, said was caused by a missile fired from a US Predator drone aircraft.

The Pakistani military said the militants were probably killed while making bombs.

Many foreign al Qaeda militants fled to Pakistan after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

Since then, many have been involved in fighting both Pakistani security forces and US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistani security forces launched a series of operations in North and South Waziristan since late 2003 to drive out foreign insurgents, but the government then struck peace deals in the hope of isolating them.

Last month, pro-Taliban tribesmen backed by Pakistani troops began fighting foreign militants in South Waziristan, and more than 300 foreigners were killed.

President Pervez Musharraf, a staunch ally in the US-led war on terrorism, said last month that there were indications tribesmen in North Waziristan and Bajaur, another hotbed of support for the militants, would also turn against the foreign fighters.

Reuters KK GC1942