Islamabad  - Pakistani security officials claimed on Monday to have killed 10 militants in the country's restless tribal district along the Afghan border.

Helicopter gunships and artillery shells targeted a militants' location in the Khyber area, which serves as a vital route for supplies for NATO troops deployed in landlocked Afghanistan, said an official from Frontier Corps, the paramilitary troops fighting the Taliban.

"Our forces destroyed their communication system, 15 vehicles and killed 10 of their men," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Islamabad - Pakistani security officials claimed on Monday to have killed 10 militants in the country's restless tribal district along the Afghan border.

Helicopter gunships and artillery shells targeted a militants' location in the Khyber area, which serves as a vital route for supplies for NATO troops deployed in landlocked
Afghanistan, said an official from Frontier Corps, the paramilitary troops fighting the Taliban.

"Our forces destroyed their communication system, 15 vehicles and killed 10 of their men," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Islamabad  - A Pakistani government official claimed that a "permanent ceasefire" was reached with militants in the troubled Swat valley, but the Taliban said their Shura council would decide once their own 10-day truce ends next week, media reports said Sunday.

The Taliban last weekend announced a unilateral ceasefire, which will expire on Wednesday, to welcome talks between a hard-line Muslim cleric, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, and the authorities for enforcement of Sharia laws in the region.

The North West Frontier Province government on Monday said that under an agreement with Mohammad, Islamic system of justice would come into force in Malakand division, of which Swat is a part, soon after peace was restored in the valley.

Islamabad - A Pakistani government official claimed that a "permanent ceasefire" was reached with militants in the troubled Swat valley, but the Taliban said their Shura council would decide once their own 10-day truce ends next week, media reports said Sunday.

The Taliban last weekend announced a unilateral ceasefire, which will expire on Wednesday, to welcome talks between a hard-line Muslim cleric, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, and the authorities for enforcement of Sharia laws in the region.

Islamabad, Feb. 22 : Hours after the North West Frontier Province government claimed that it has reached an accord with the Tehrik-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for a permanent ceasefire in the Swat Valley, chief of the Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, refused to have agreed to any such deal saying that the peace agreement was for only 10 days, The New York Times reports.

"We had only agreed to a 10-day truce and would consider an extension at the end of that period," Fazlullah said while speaking on his private FM radio channel.

Islamabad  - Pakistan's top three Taliban commanders have set aside their rivalries and decided to cooperate as the US expands its covert drone attacks against militants on Pakistani soil, media reports said on Saturday.

Baitullah Mehsud, the head of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella organization of more than a dozen militant organizations in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal region and neighbouring North West Frontier Province, held a meeting with his rival commanders Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahader last week, it has emerged.