ISLAMABAD: Pakistani forces are zeroing in on two major Taleban bases in South Waziristan region as their offensive pushes deeper into militant bastion on the Afghan border, the military said on Sunday.

Troops fought deadly street battles in a Taleban center and den of Uzbek fighters on Sunday, pressing a major offensive into a third week and killing nine militants.

Although the military provides the only regular information coming from the front lines, none of the details can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers are barred from the area.

The latest casualties reported in a military statement bring to 306 the number of insurgents and 36 the number of soldiers reported killed since the operation was launched in South Waziristan recently.

The district is part of the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border where US officials say Al-Qaeda and their allies are plotting attacks on the West.

“Search and clearance operation of Kanigurram has commenced and 50 percent of the town has been cleared,” the military said in a statement.

Troops were fighting street by street in what commanders have described as a major Tehreek-e-Taleban “operational center” and base for Uzbek fighters, one military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Uzbeks are the largest group among foreign militants backing Taleban fighters in Pakistan.

In Khyber tribal district, militants blew up a girls school on Sunday destroying the building and wounding four people in neighboring homes, officials said.

Two explosions ripped through the 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village and a boy who watched the premises is missing, possibly kidnapped by the militants, local administration officials said.

“The militants have blown up the school with two blasts and all rooms were demolished,” said administration official Shafeerullah.

“Four people in neighboring houses were also wounded and their homes slightly damaged. We’re still trying to find out what happened to the office boy,” Shafeer told AFP.

Another of Khyber's administrators, Farooq Khan, confirmed the incident.

Militants, who have carved out a strong presence in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years.

Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat Valley alone during a two-year Taleban uprising in a district once favored by Western tourists for its ski slopes and bracing mountain air.

Following up a similar offensive in Swat this summer, Pakistan has been fighting against homegrown militants in Khyber and pressing a major assault designed to crush Taleban sanctuaries in South Waziristan.

Authorities last month shut schools across Pakistan following a suicide attack on a university campus in Islamabad, although most have since reopened.

Meanwhile, as security forces battled pockets of resistance militants kidnapped and killed a prominent pro-government activist in another tribal area where the government claims to have near-total control.

The kidnapping took place Saturday night in the town of Khar, the largest in the Bajaur tribal region, when a group of about 60 militants stormed the house of Jahangir Khan, said Adalat Khan, a town official.

“The bullet-riddled body of Jahangir Khan was found a kilometer away from the main town, with his legs and hands tied with a rope,” he said. Khan had apparently been dragged before being shot, he said.

The same militants also kidnapped one of the town’s most powerful landlords along with his son, his grandson and another relative. It was not immediately clear why they were kidnapped, though they may be held for ransom.

Pakistan launched a major offensive in Bajaur last year and now insists it has total control nearly everywhere in the region, including in Khar — a claim undercut by the Saturday attacks and a series of other violent incidents in recent months.

The country’s foreign minister said in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday offensive in South Waziristan had been “very successful” and the military is likely to achieve most of its objectives before winter sets in.

Since October 17 some 30,000 Pakistani troops have been waging a major assault against Taleban fighters hiding out in the formidable terrain of South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the military has made significant headway in the region, part of the tribal belt where United States officials say Al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on the West.

“The operation so far has been very successful. The resistance that we were expecting initially did not come with the same stiffness as we expected,” he said on the sidelines of a conference of developing nations in Kuala Lumpur.

“We would want to achieve our objectives as much as possible before the winter sets in. It seems, as things are going on right now, that we might be able to do so,” he said.

“That area becomes very cold so we want to operate and establish our foothold before that,” he said. Qureshi would not give a date, but winter sets in around mid-December in that region.

Qureshi said that many important towns and locations were now in the control of Pakistan’s army and that “quite a few” militants had been killed or arrested.

“We are moving ahead, the entire region has been surrounded... to choke supply lines and minimize their effectiveness,” he said.

“The leadership that was located in South Waziristan is on the run, they are in retreat and there is disarray there.”

Analysts had said that Pakistan’s military faced tough odds to smash Taleban networks in South Waziristan, on impenetrable terrain infested with some of the most dangerous militants in the world.

Numerous previous offensives in the tribal belt have had limited success.