Seven people were killed, including two children, when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a police outpost today in Pakistan’s Swat valley, the site of an ongoing military operation against Islamic militants loyal to a fugitive cleric.

Security forces backed by helicopter gunships killed 10 suspected insurgents today in a mountainous valley in north-western Pakistan, where the government is battling supporters of a militant pro-Taliban cleric, the military said.

Militants seized a police post and paramilitary troops set up sandbagged bunkers to bolster security in a tense town in northwestern Pakistan where supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric have taken up arms against the government, police said today.

Militants have killed all 11 men they kidnapped from a minibus in apparent retaliation for an assault by security forces on the stronghold of a militant cleric in north-western Pakistan, a police official said today.

Suicide bombers struck today in two areas of north-western Pakistan, killing up to 38 people, while Taliban militants broke a 10-month-old peace pact with the government along the frontier with Afghanistan.

Three blasts struck a military convoy in north-western Pakistan today, killing 14 people in an intensifying militant campaign of violence against the government in the restive border region, an army spokesman said.

Thousands of troops were deployed to north-west Pakistan to try dissuading outlawed Islamic militants from launching a holy war against the government for its bloody attack on a radical mosque, officials said today.