A senior Pakistan army officer and a soldier were killed in an ambush by suspected Islamic militants in Islamabad yesterday, in the latest in a series of strikes aimed at Pakistani security forces.

Two gunmen riding on motorbike ambushed the vehicle in a residential district killing Brigadier Moenuddin Ahmed and his guard. He had recently returned to Pakistan from a foreign posting.

The driver who was also shot was in a critical state. Police have detained many people for investigation, said Kalim Imam, the city police chief. He said that two prayer leaders of a mosque were also detained.

Footage on Pakistani television showed the green jeep's windshield peppered with bullet holes.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the Pakistani Taleban has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks on security forces, including a siege of the army's headquarters last week.

Security was heightened in the capital and nearby Rawalpindi garrison town as the authorities braced for a fresh wave of violence.

Police have launched a search operation in the surrounding villages and cracked down on Islamic seminaries in the capital that the authorities suspect were harbouring potential suicide bombers.

Scores of extremist madrassas or Islamic seminaries have sprung up in Islamabad in recent years housing thousands of students, the majority of whom are from northwest Pakistan and the tribal region.

Police recovered a large cache of weapons in a raid on one madrassa that was headed by an Afghan.

Pakistan shut schools and universities across the country after Tuesday’s double suicide bombing on an Islamabad university that killed 8 people including two female students.

The attack was part of the wave of terrorist attacks mainly against military installations and personnel that have killed more than 170 people in less than two weeks.

The militants have stepped up the violence after Pakistan last week launched a military offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region, which is viewed as the main base of al-Qaeda and Taleban militants challenging the Pakistani Government.

Around 30,000 security forces are locked in fierce battle with more than 10,000 insurgents in the lawless border region.

The military is advancing on multiple fronts. Over the past few days, they have been fighting for the hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistani Taleban. The fight for Kotkai is strategically important because it lies on the way to the important militant base of Sararogha.

Major General Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, said on Wednesday that forces were engaged in intense battles with the Taleban in the rough and difficult mountainous terrain. He said that troops had secured parts of the town and destroyed Mehsud's house.

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