Islamabad - Pro-Taliban militants on Wednesday killed three soldiers in a rocket attack on a checkpoint in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and targeted a helicopter gunship in a nearby tribal area, officials and media reports said. The attack by 15 to 16 insurgents on the Frontier Corps checkpoint in a pre-dawn raid triggered a firefight that left three paramilitary soldiers dead, local police investigator Qudrat Ullah said.
There were unconfirmed reports that the militants removed at least three of their dead, he added.
In a separate incident near the border with Afghanistan, Islamic fighters fired anti-aircraft rounds at a military helicopter as it flew supplies to troops near the town of Wana in the North Waziristan tribal district.
The attack led to a heavy exchange of fire in which seven soldiers were injured by a rocket, the Aaj news channel reported.
NWFP and its semi-autonomous tribal regions experienced a sharp rise in militant attacks on security forces since President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the war against terrorism, sent troops to storm a radical mosque in Islamabad in July.
More than 100 security personnel have since been killed in the area, which is believed to hold refuges of al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban groups that are fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has deployed 90,000 troops along the border to help curb militant infiltration.
Meanwhile, four people were injured Wednesday in a bomb blast in Quetta, the capital of the south-west Balochistan province.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although suspicion fell on separatist rebels seeking autonomy and greater shares in the province's oil and gas wealth.
