Blast in Pakistan's Waziristan kills 1, wounds 15

WANA, Pakistan, Sep 2 (Reuters) A bomb in the main town of Pakistan's South Waziristan region on the Afghan border today killed one person and wounded 15, a security official said.

Pro-Taliban militants have been battling security forces in the ethnic Pashtun tribal region for several years but violence has intensified since the collapse of a peace deal with militants and an army crackdown on a radical mosque in the capital in July.

The target of the blast in the market area of Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, was a prominent pro-government tribesman, a security official who declined to be identified said. The tribesman was among the 15 wounded in the blast.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban members fled to the Pakistani side of the Afghan border after US and Afghan opposition forces toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Despite Pakistani military efforts to clear out the foreign militants and subdue their Pakistani tribesmen allies, US officials say al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are still able to regroup and plot attacks from the Pakistani border lands.

Separately, tribal elders were trying today to secure the release of about 150 paramilitary soldiers being held by militants in another part of South Waziristan.

The soldiers disappeared on Thursday while travelling in about 17 trucks 40 km north of Wana.

Intelligence officials said the militants, who objected to troops moving into their area, had taken the soldiers to mountain hideouts.

Militants captured 10 paramilitary soldiers in another northwestern tribal region yesterday, a government official said.

REUTERS PDT KP1918