Taliban fighters killed eight Pakistani soldiers at a checkpoint in an Afghan border region that the army had said was cleared of insurgents, while two bomb attacks today in the north-west killed six civilians, officials said.

Thousands of angry villagers who have laid siege to a group of Taliban gunmen in Pakistan were today backed up by army helicopter gunships.

Hundreds of Pakistanis angry over a mosque bomb attack have banded together to attack Taliban strongholds in a troubled northwest region, killing at least four militants.

A suicide bomber killed 30 people attending prayers at a mosque in Pakistan’s violence-racked north west today.