Two Pakistani soldiers killed in blast

TANK, Pakistan, May 26 (Reuters) A roadside bomb killed two Pakistani soldiers and wounded five on Saturday in an attack on a military convoy near a northwestern town where Islamist militants have been active, police and hospital officials said.

The convoy was travelling to the troubled South Waziristan tribal region when struck, four km south of Tank town, the officials said.

''It was a remote-controlled bomb and exploded when the convoy of about 45 military vehicles was passing,'' said Muhammad Idrees Khan, a police official in the town in North West Frontier Province.

Security forces and militants have battled intermittently in Tank this year, evidence, some analysts say, of ''Talibanisation'', or the spread of militant influence from remote tribal regions on the Afghan border to more developed, populous areas.

At least five people were killed and 12 wounded in clashes last week in the town, 290 km southwest of Islamabad.

Beginning in 2003, Pakistani security forces launched a series of offensives in northwestern areas on the Afghan border to drive out al Qaeda-linked militants as part of its efforts in the US-led war on terrorism.

Hundreds of Pakistani troops have been killed while many militants have been killed in attacks on their camps along the border.

REUTERS NC VV1059