Shelling resumed this morning in an area of northwest Pakistan where battles between troops and militants have killed up to 250 people and sent thousands more fleeing, witnesses said.

Four soldiers were killed today when one of three helicopters escorting Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf crashed.

A suicide bomber set off a blast that killed at least 15 people and injured 22 others today at a crowded police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, police said.

Osama bin Laden’s call for Pakistanis to rise up against their US-allied military leader struck a chord among an angry, extremist minority on Friday, but resonated little among the wider public and was dismissed by the government as “ridiculous.”

Pakistan today dismissed Osama bin Laden as a terrorist whose “ridiculous” call for holy war against its US-allied leader will find little echo, despite growing concern that al-Qaida is regrouping near the Afghan border.

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden today called on Pakistanis to rebel against President Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan’s army has agreed to a cease-fire with militants holding some 260 soldiers hostage near the Afghan border, officials said today.

Pakistan vowed to step up its fight against terrorism today after a suicide attacker detonated an explosive-laden vehicle inside a high-security military base, killing 16 soldiers from an elite counter-terrorism task force.

A suicide attacker in a vehicle detonated a bomb at an army canteen in north-western Pakistan today, killing at least 15 soldiers and wounding 11 others, officials said.

A suicide attacker blew himself up at an army canteen in north-western Pakistan today, killing at least 10 soldiers, officials said.

Up to 25 insurgents were killed today in a battle between Pakistani troops and militants near the Afghan border, the army said.

At least 24 people were killed and 66 injured when two bombs ripped through a Pakistani army bus and a commercial district in a city near the capital Islamabad today.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden car at a roadside security post in northwestern Pakistan today, killing four troops and wounding eight others, officials said.

Pakistan army helicopter gunships strafed and bombed suspected militant hide-outs in a restive tribal region in the country’s North West today, killing 15 fighters, an official said.

Suspected Islamic militants decapitated one Afghan man and shot dead another after accusing them of spying for the US in a tribal region in north-western Pakistan, an intelligence official said today.

Some low-level al-Qaida members were among a dozen militant fighters killed by an artillery and helicopter attack on two compounds near the Afghan border, officials said today, raising the toll from the strike a day earlier from 10.

A suicide attacker drove an explosive-laden car into traffic at a busy bus station in north-western Pakistan today, unleashing a blast that killed nine people and wounded 35 others, officials said.

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.

Pakistani troops combed the warren-like Red Mosque complex for booby traps and any remaining militants today after storming the compound and killing its pro-Taliban cleric.

Pakistani troops attempted to clear a women’s religious school after seizing Islamabad’s Red Mosque in fierce fighting that left at least 40 militants and three soldiers dead.

Pakistani commandos stormed Islamabad’s Red Mosque compound today, sparking a fierce fight with militants accused of holding about 150 hostages inside.

Nato and US-led forces killed 60 insurgents near the border with Pakistan, in what the military described today as the largest group of insurgents crossing the region in six months.

Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs were among about 30 militants killed in a missile attack on a suspected al-Qaida hideout in north-west Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said today.