Pakistan army kills 66 militants in tribal belt

Pakistan's army said Thursday it had killed 66 Taliban as fighting spilled into a tribal area and known bolthole for the militant group blamed for a deadly bombing at a luxury Peshawar hotel.
At least nine people were killed when three attackers shot their way through a security checkpost and rammed an explosives-laden truck into Peshawar's five-star Pearl Continental late Tuesday.
It was the latest in a string of attacks in Pakistan widely seen as revenge by the Taliban for a punishing military offensive launched against insurgents around northwest Swat valley on April 26.
But the army shows no signs of letting up on the Islamist extremists, with operations this week expanding into Bannu district on the fringes of Waziristan, where Washington alleges al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels are holed up.
In a daily update, the army said that "during the last 24 hours... 34 terrorists were killed while three were apprehended" in Bannu, where artillery and helicopter gunships have been pounding rebel positions.
In South Waziristan itself, 22 suspected rebels were killed when the army repulsed an attack, the statement said.
In Swat's Taliban stronghold of Peochar, 10 suspected militants were killed, taking the total killed in the last day to 66.
The campaign in and around Swat was launched under US pressure after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100km of Islamabad, flouting a deal to put three million people under Sharia law in exchange for peace.
In other unrest Thursday, one person was killed and 35 injured when a bomb hidden in a toilet exploded on a train in southwestern Baluchistan province, railway official Manzoor Ahmad Magsi said.
The blast happened about 45 kilometres (25 miles) away from the provincial capital Quetta in an area rife with militant and sectarian violence.
Just outside Peshawar, gunmen attacked the car of northwest provincial minister for prisons Mian Nisar Gul. The official was wounded, while two of his body guards and one of the assailants were killed, police said.
Investigators, meanwhile, sifted through the rubble of the Pearl Continental hotel for DNA and other clues to try to piece together exactly who was behind the blast which killed nine people and wounded 62.
"We are investigating the blast from different angles. We have taken two hotel employees and four other suspects in for questioning," Qazi Jamilur Rehman, a senior police officer in Peshawar, told AFP.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said on Wednesday the blast was likely the work of Taliban seeking revenge for the northwest offensive against them, and warned of more attacks.
About 155 people have been killed in bombings since the military offensive began, with the Taliban claiming responsibility for a May 27 assault on a Lahore police building, warning of more "massive attacks".
The military says it has killed nearly 1,400 militants since the assault began on April 26, although the figures are impossible to verify.
The offensive has broad support among Pakistanis exasperated by Taliban linked attacks, which have killed more than 1,960 people since July 2007.