Three Pakistani soldiers killed in militant attack

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, Aug 22 (Reuters) Pro-Taliban militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a Pakistani paramilitary checkpost in the northwest of the country today, killing three soldiers, police said.

At least three grenades hit the checkpost in the attack in the early hours near the town of Bannu in North West Frontier Province, on the main road to the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

''We have reports of three dead. All were Frontier Constabulary troops,'' said senior Bannu police official Mohammad Aslam Khattak.

Troops battled the militants for more than an hour after the initial attack but there were no reports of additional casualties, he said.

Pakistan has been facing a surge in violence since mid-July, when a peace deal with militants in North Waziristan broke down and commandos stormed a radical mosque in the capital, Islamabad.

More than 200 people, most of them police and soldiers, have been killed in blasts and clashes, most in Waziristan and neighbouring parts of the northwest.

Militants attacked two security force checkposts in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, yesterday night but there were no reports of casualties, residents said.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban members took refuge in Waziristan and other remote, rugged regions on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border after US and Afghan opposition forces defeated the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Despite Pakistani efforts to clear out foreign militants and subdue their Pakistani allies, US security officials say Waziristan and other border areas are sanctuaries for al Qaeda and the Taliban where they can regroup and plot violence.

Reuters RKM GC1110