Islamabad- Two of three suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up Thursday after residents in Pakistan's restive North-West Frontier Province tried to apprehend them, officials said.

Three militants stopped briefly in the village of Maskeray in the Dir district, were spotted by residents and challenged, Mayor Bakht Sher said in a telephone interview. The two sides exchanged fire and the two militants blew themselves up, he said.

The third militant fled into a forest near the village but was later seized by the locals and beaten severely, Sher said.

Islamabad, Sept. 18 : Pakistan’s desire to have a colonial like influence over neighboring Afghanistan is showing no signs of diminishing, believes a columnist for the magazine, Vanity Fair.

According to Christopher Hitchens, important circles in Pakistan have never given up the aspiration to run Afghanistan as a client or dependent or proxy state, and this colonial mindset is especially entrenched among senior army officers and in the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Islamabad, Sept 18 : Six people, including a couple of foreigners, were killed and three injured last evening when the US forces launched air strikes on a compound allegedly used by militants in South Waziristan, officials said.

Islamabad  - At least six Islamic militants were killed in multiple missile strikes suspected to have been carried out by a US drone in Pakistan's tribal region along Afghan border, officials said.

"Around four missiles hit a house in Baghar Cheena village in South Waziristan in the late afternoon," said a local security official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Six people were killed and four more were injured in the strike, he said.

Islamabad - Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery on Wednesday pounded Taliban militant positions in the country's lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border, killing at least 19 rebels, an army spokesman said.

"In the Bajaur tribal district today, the ground troops secured several areas and moved forward toward Loi Sam, the militants' headquarters," Major Murad Khan said Wednesday.

He said the positions insurgents had "fortified around Loi Sam were engaged by artillery and gunship helicopters, leaving at least 19 militants killed and numerous injured."

Islamabad, Sept 17 : Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Tuesday became the first parliamentarian to be elected chairman of the Kashmir Committee of the National Assembly.

Rehman’s name was proposed by Aftab Hussain Shah Jilani of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and seconded by Sheikh Aftab Ahmed of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said, “Maulana Fazl’s election is part of a power-sharing formula under which the JUI-F, which has one minister in the federal cabinet, would get two more ministries and a post of parliamentary secretary.”