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Roadside explosion kills two soldiers in Pakistan

A roadside bomb exploded near a military convoy in troubled northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing at least two soldiers and wounding seven others, officials said.

The blast occurred near Tank, a town about 70km west of Dera Ismail Khan, a city in North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan.

Mohammed Idris, a police chief in the area, said the troops were on their way to the nearby South Waziristan tribal region when the attack happened.

He said that the bomb had also damaged some vehicles, adding that security forces had launched a search to trace and arrest those responsible.

A spokesman for the Pakistan army, Major General Waheed Arshad, confirmed the attack and casualties, but would not speculate on who might have been behind it.

The blast came a day after a committee overseeing the implementation of a September peace deal between the government and local militants resigned to protest a military raid on a suspected militant hide-out in North Waziristan that they said violated the accord.

The resignations -- an apparent setback to the agreement -- came days after the military claimed it had knocked out a training camp near the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing four suspected militants.

Security forces, backed by helicopter gunships, attacked the suspected militant facility near Miran Shah after people inside opened fire at tribal elders sent to persuade them to surrender, Arshad said at the time.

But the committee claimed civilians were killed in the attack, and that it was carried out without their approval.

The government signed the deal to stop attacks by pro-Taliban militants on its security forces inside Pakistan and Afghanistan and to expel foreign militants. In return, local militants had been given amnesty.

Pakistan is a key ally of the US in its war on terror and it has deployed about 90,000 troops in its tribal regions, where remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda are believed to be hiding.
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