MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: At least four soldiers were killed and seven wounded when a military convoy struck a roadside bomb in Pakistan’s troubled northwest on Thursday, security officials said.

The convoy was passing through Spinwam village, some 45 kilometers east of Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal region which is a hub of Taleban and Al-Qaeda linked militants on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Pakistani officials blamed “miscreants” — a term they often use for Taleban militants — for the attack.

“Four soldiers embraced Shahadat (martyrdom) and seven were injured. The roadside IED was planted by miscreants,” a senior military official told AFP.

A second security official said one military truck was badly damaged in the attack.

Ansarul Mujahideen, a little known militant group linked to the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

“It is in retaliation to the drone strike in Hangu,” Abu Baseer, a purported spokesman of the group told AFP by telephone, threatening more attacks.

Hangu is a district in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where a US drone struck a religious seminary in November, killing six militants.

The attack, which militant sources said killed the Haqqanis’ spiritual leader along with five others, was extremely unusual in that it was mounted outside Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border.

The TTP and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have led a bloody campaign against the Pakistani state in recent years, carrying out hundreds of attacks on security forces and government targets, concentrated largely in the northwest.