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.

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.