Tribal militants killed 17 Pakistani soldiers yesterday in an ambush on an army convoy near the Afghan border.

The militants detonated a remote-controlled bomb and then opened fire on the convoy near Alwara Mandi, a few miles from a US base in Afghanistan. The battle lasted several hours and reportedly claimed the lives of several militants.

Militants also attacked a military convoy in the area, wounding one soldier, and fired five rockets at the home of a pro-government tribal elder.

The attacks are the latest to beset the troubled North Waziristan region, where resurgent al-Qaeda and Taleban forces have regrouped. More than 140 people, mostly soldiers, have been killed in northern Pakistan since militants declared war against the Government for storming the Red Mosque in Islamabad last week. In return the Government has sent in more troops.

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There is no going back for Musharraf now. He has no choice but to renew his fight against extremism

Zahid Hussain, Times correspondent in Islamabad

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Last year the Government signed a peace deal with the militants, bringing to a halt a bloody, two-year operation to pacify the region. The militants, led by Baitullah Mehsud, ended the truce last week, accusing President Musharraf of breaking his promise to withdraw troops from North Waziristan.

General Musharraf had defended the deal as the best hope of bringing peace to the region, but the United States said that it gave militants a chance to regroup. This week the White House gave warning that the main threat of terrorist attacks in the US emanated from tribal areas in Pakistan.

North Waziristan, the most troubled of Pakistan’s seven autonomous tribal regions, has long been a haven for al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters. Pakistani authorities have acknowledged that the terrorist network operating from the region poses the most potent threat to national security.

Most of the suicide attacks carried out in Islamabad and North West Frontier Province are believed to have been planned in North Waziristan. According to a confidential report by the Pakistani Interior Ministry, a number of new militant camps have been established in the border areas to train suicide bombers for attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A senior Pakistani official said that the militants had used the Red Mosque raid as an excuse to end the truce. “It was just a matter of time when the militants restarted fighting.”

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