DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan: The Pakistan Taleban will attack government, police and military officials if three of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s widows are not released from Pakistani custody, a spokesman for the militant group said yesterday.

Pakistan’s government has charged Bin Laden’s three widows with illegally entering and staying in the country, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday.

“If the family of Osama bin Laden is not released as soon as possible, we will attack the judges, the lawyers and the security officials involved in their trial,” Ehsanullah Ehsan of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) told Reuters.

“We will carry out suicide bombings against security forces and the government across the country.” Malik did not specify which court was dealing with the case. The three women will have to stand trial, but it was not clear what punishment they face if convicted.

Pakistan had previously said that it would repatriate the women after a government commission probing the Bin Laden raid had completed its questioning.

The commission has interviewed the family members for clues about how the Al-Qaeda chief managed to stay in the country undetected.

The TTP vowed revenge after Bin Laden’s death last year, and carried out high-profile attacks across Pakistan. It bombed an American consulate convoy, laid siege to a naval base and killed paramilitary cadets.

TTP’s spokesman also threatened attacks against Shad Begum, a women’s rights activist based in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The US State Department honored Begum with the 2012 International Women of Courage award at a ceremony in Washington on Thursday.

“She works for a secular and infidel system in Pakistan,” Ehsan said. “That is why America has given her this prize.”

Meanwhile, Taleban militants armed with guns and rockets ambushed a Pakistani military convoy yesterday, killing seven soldiers in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan, officials said.

The attack took place at Khar Qamar, 30 km west of Miranshah, the main town in the district that has become the most notorious Taleban and Al-Qaeda stronghold on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The Pakistani security officials said nine militants were also killed in the attack, but there was no independent confirmation of the toll.

“At least seven soldiers were martyred when militants fired machine guns and rockets on a military convoy,” a senior security official said.

Other security officials in Peshawar, the biggest city in northwest Pakistan, confirmed the attack and that the toll had risen from four to seven.

“After the ambush, Pakistani military helicopters and troops retaliated and there were reports of deaths of nine militants,” an intelligence official said.

In another development, a US drone attack has killed 12 militants close to the Afghan border.

The missile attack took place in South Waziristan region yesterday.

The officials did not give their names because they are not authorized to disclose them to reporters.