A day-long clash between militants from Afghanistan who crossed the border and attacked a Pakistani checkpoint left 23 troops and 35 insurgents dead, police said today, underlining the challenges facing Pakistan as it tries to stamp out insurgents in its north-west.

Two passengers were killed and nine others injured when a roadside bomb hit a minibus in north-western Pakistan today, an official said.

THE Taliban is negotiating a peace deal with a Pakistani tribe in the northwest, tribal elders said yesterday, that could give militants access to remote strategic areas on the Afghan border.

A roadside bomb killed six Taliban militants, including a prominent local commander, in north-western Pakistan today in an attack that could have been motivated by tensions between different insurgent groups.

PAKISTANI authorities blocked a vital supply route for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan yesterday after the killing of three soldiers in two NATO cross-border incursions, officials said.

Militants armed with assault rifles killed at least 16 bus passengers in an ambush in northwest Pakistan.

Fighter jets pounded militant hide-outs in north-western Pakistan today, killing 18 suspected fighters, an official said.

Pakistani troops killed 54 suspected insurgents in overnight air strikes on a strategic north-west checkpoint, an official said.

Pakistani security forces killed 29 militants in two troubled tribal regions near Afghanistan today, officials said, as troops pressed on with operations aimed at flushing out insurgents who have threatened the state.

Five Pakistani soldiers and at least 21 suspected militants were killed in clashes in a region near the Afghan border where the military is pursuing Taliban insurgents fleeing a US-backed offensive, authorities said today.

Pakistan may launch a new military offensive near the Afghan border where militant leaders are believed to have fled to escape a government onslaught against the Taliban in South Waziristan, the prime minister said.

Pakistan’s president today vowed that crucial parliamentary elections would go ahead tomorrow as planned despite a massive suicide car bombing at a campaign rally that killed up to 46 people – many of them supporters of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

A suicide bomber rammed his car into an election office in north-western Pakistan today, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 90 others, government officials said. A witness described bodies lying in pools of blood.

A hard-line Muslim cleric who led thousands of Pakistani tribesmen into Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban was jailed for three years today.