An explosion near a bus terminal in Pakistan’s Swat Valley killed two people and wounded at least 35 today, officials said.

PAKISTAN’S main spy agency continues to train, fund and arm the Taliban despite US pressure to sever ties with the group that Islamabad helped rise to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, said a research report.

More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a ground offensive against al Qaida and the Taliban’s main stronghold along the Afghan border today in the country’s toughest test yet against a strengthening insurgency.

Pakistan launched a much-awaited ground offensive in the al-Qaida and Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan early today in the toughest test yet in its struggle against militants aiming to topple the state.

The Pakistan military says it has regained control of the largest town in the Swat Valley from the Taliban.

Taliban militants extended their grip in north-western Pakistan, pushing out from a valley where the government has agreed to impose Islamic law and patrolling villages as close as 60 miles from the capital.

The Pakistani military has pounded an extremist stronghold near the Afghan border where a rebel leader blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is believed to be hiding, officials said.

A suicide bombing killed four Pakistani troops near the Afghan border today, as tribal elders met with Islamic militants elsewhere in the troubled north-west of the country to seek the release of at least 120 kidnapped Pakistani soldiers, officials said.

Pakistan today successfully test fired its longest-range, nuclear-capable surface-to-surface missile, the military said.

Ten people died in an earthquake in northern Pakistan today, government officials said.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today unilaterally amended the constitution, giving himself the power to dissolve parliament and giving the military a formal role in governing the nation.

A military aircraft left for the Afghan capital Kabul today to bring a batch of 30 Pakistani supporters of the Taliban who have been freed by the Afghan government at the request of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, a senior Pakistani official said.