The military said Ameerullah Mehsud was one of the top commanders in the Pakistani Taleban, the group blamed for some of the deadliest bomb attacks of a three-year campaign that has killed more than 3,400 people.

He also went by the alias of Qari Gud, which means “the man who limps,” and Mazloomyar, which means “friend of the oppressed” in the Pashtu language.

Mehsud was shot dead at a security checkpoint in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, where Pakistani commanders have felt under increasing US pressure to launch a decisive campaign against Islamist strongholds.

“His head money was $20 million rupees. Two soldiers were also wounded in the shootout,” the military said in a statement.

Pakistan’s prime minister on Monday called on political parties and religious leaders to help the state and army fight militancy.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani opened a special high-level meeting on law and order by expressing “great concern” over the latest bloodshed and calling for a national conference to formulate a strategy to combat terrorism.

Gilani was quoted in a statement from his office as saying the federal government could not handle the problem on its own.

“Beside the army and law enforcing agencies, the terrorism, sectarianism and ethnic divide need to be handled by the important pillars of the state including public representatives from all the political parties, religious leaders and civil society,” he said. Police have arrested 12 suspected terrorists over attacks on two complexes of a minority sect and a hospital in Lahore, officials said on Sunday.

They were arrested in the suburbs of the eastern city and police also seized “huge quantity of explosive material and weapons from their custody”, deputy chief of police operations Rao Sardar told AFP.

Sardar did not disclose when the arrests were made.

In May, militants wearing suicide vests burst into two Ahmadi sect complexes in Lahore and killed 82 people.

At least four people were killed in another attack three days later on Jinnah Hospital, where victims from the complexes were being treated.

Sardar said the weapons seized included rocket launchers, hand grenades and anti-aircraft guns.

Another police official, Zulfiqar Hameed, confirmed the arrests.

News of the arrests came three days after twin suicide attacks on a shrine in Lahore killed 43 people. Police said they have “apprehended” several people in their investigation into Thursday’s bombings, which left a trail of carnage at the shrine.

Lahore has increasingly suffered Taleban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence, with around 265 people killed in nine attacks since March last year.

Four suicide attackers armed with car bombs and rockets targeted a fort, killing a soldier and wounding at least seven in an area troubled by Taleban, officials said on Monday.

The squad targeted the post manned by paramilitary in the northwestern town of Timargarah in Lower Dir at around 2:15 a.m., local police chief Qazi Jamil said.

“There were four suicide bombers. They tried to attack the post. All four were killed. Their vehicles were also fitted with rockets and mortars,” senior police officer Qazi Jamil told AFP.

One soldier was killed, 12 troops and a civilian were wounded, Jamil said.

Lower Dir is around 80 km northwest of the Swat Valley. Pakistan waged a major offensive against the Taleban in both districts last year but now says the region is back under army control.

The military said troops destroyed two car bombs and killed four suicide bombers, “averting an attack” on the Timargarah checkpost. One soldier died in the incident and seven others were wounded, the military said.

For two years, radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah led thousands of followers in an uprising that paralyzed much of Swat.