ARMY helicopter gunships pounded insurgent hideouts in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 22 militants, a government official said.

A SUICIDE bomber killed seven people near a major air force complex in northwest Pakistan yesterday, while an explosion killed 17 on a bus heading to a wedding elsewhere in the region, the latest in a surge of militant attacks this month.

Tens of thousands of civilians, many on foot or donkey-led carts, took advantage of a lifted curfew to flee Pakistan’s embattled Swat Valley, while the army said it had killed 400 to 500 militants in its battle against the Taliban.

Dozens of suspected militants fired rockets early today at a transport terminal in northwest Pakistan that is used to ship supplies to Nato troops based in Afghanistan, police said.

At least 11 people are dead after a suicide bomber struck a restaurant in volatile northwest Pakistan.

A suspected US missile strike killed at least seven people in northwest Pakistan, witnesses said today.

Suspected militants have attacked another terminal in northwest Pakistan for trucks ferrying supplies to Nato and US forces in Afghanistan.

Suspected militants bombed a van carrying prisoners in northwest Pakistan today, killing at least nine people, as fighting between security forces and extremists flared across the country’s tribal belt.

Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama, looking to chart a US foreign policy course far removed from the Bush administration’s path, said he would bring Osama bin Laden to justice in a way that would deny the al-Qaida leader the chance to become a martyr.

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.

A suicide car bomber attacked a police academy in northwest Pakistan today, killing up to six people, officials said.

Thousands of children in regions devastated by South Asia’s earthquake are at risk of death from cold, malnutrition and disease, UNICEF said.

A mild earthquake hit Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, causing panic among residents but no injuries, an official said today.

A 5.1-magnitude quake rattled parts of south-western Pakistan tonight, causing people to rush out of their homes in panic. No casualties were reported.

Tens of thousands of cable television subscribers in northwest Pakistan were cut off today after armed masked men stormed a broadcaster’s offices and smashed equipment.

A delegation of senior Pakistani officials will go to Afghanistan tomorrow to demand that the ruling Taliban militia hand over Osama bin Laden to the US, a top Government official said.

Flash flooding caused a mountain of mud to roar down on dozens of homes in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 37 people and injuring 58 others. Many others were still missing, police said.

Frustrated by a flood of Afghan refugees into the country, Pakistan’s frontier government today threatened to evict 100,000, some of whom have been living in exile for 20 years.