ISLAMABAD, 14 August 2007 — Pakistan’s elite Frontier Corps killed four militants in an ambush in a remote tribal town near the Afghan border, while an attack on an army convoy injured three soldiers, officials said yesterday.

Fighting erupted overnight when militants opened fire on a check post in the Tanai area of the South Waziristan tribal region, chief military spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said.

“The miscreants opened fire on a military check post at about 2:00 a.m. The troops retaliated and killed the attackers,” Arshad said.

No troops were injured.

Elsewhere, a bomb explosion in a pickup truck killed four people and injured seven, an official and a witness said.

In North Waziristan, militants fired rockets at two security posts near the Afghan border, wounding three paramilitary soldiers, an area security official said.

The soldiers were wounded after a rocket slammed into their post in the Mana area, the official said. Three other rockets that were fired in a separate attack at a troop post in the Ghulam Khan area missed their intended target.

In Swat, a region north of South and North Waziristan, a bomb ripped through a pickup truck as it traveled on a mountain road in an area popular with tourists, said Mohammed Javed, the area’s top government administrator. Four passengers were killed and seven wounded, he said.

It was not known whether the bomb was planted inside the vehicle or was outside and detonated as the truck passed by, Javed said. Tariq Khan, a resident who witnessed the blast, said it shattered a pickup truck and left a crater in the road.

The victims were all civilians and it was not known who may have targeted them, or why.

Militants have staged almost daily attacks against security forces after pulling out of a peace deal with authorities last month. Militants renounced the accord after accusing authorities of redeploying troops to posts that had vacated under terms of the agreement. More than 380 people have been killed in a surge of attacks and suicide bombings across Pakistan since early July, and most of the violence has been in the tribal regions, where US and other officials fear Al-Qaeda and Taleban are regrouping.

South Waziristan had been largely peaceful since February 2005 when militants pledged not to launch attacks against security forces under an agreement with authorities that granted amnesty to fighters who had earlier been blamed for attacks against the government. Last week, suspected militants kidnapped 16 off-duty troops who were going home on leave after they left their base near Jandola, another South Waziristan town.

Arshad said authorities were searching for the missing troops but no one had claimed responsibility.

Air Stewardess Caught With Pistol

A Pakistani air stewardess was caught trying to carry a pistol on board a Pakistan International Airlines flight yesterday, sources said.

The stewardess, in her mid-20s, was carrying the pistol in her hand luggage as she tried to board a PIA flight from Karachi to Gwadar, they said. “She was caught this morning by Airports Security Force personnel and has been handed over to the police now,” Maqsood Ahmed, a superintendent of police, said.

It was not immediately clear as to why the woman tried to take the weapon onto a flight. Ahmed said the police were investigating.

PIA spokesman Nasir Jamal confirmed the incident, but did not give more details.

“The matter is still under investigation,” he said.