The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Islamabad

A suicide car bomber attacked a police station in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing four security officers - the latest in a series of blasts that are eroding confidence in the nuclear-armed country.

The attacker struck in the picturesque mountain valley of Swat, one of several regions where government forces have been struggling to defeat well-organized Taliban militants.

Police said insurgents opened fire on their station in Mingora, Swat's main town, after midnight with guns and at least two rockets before the man drove an explosives-laden vehicle into police compound.

District police chief Dilawar Bangash said one officer and three paramilitary troops died and another 26 people were injured, many of them seriously. The police station and several shops were badly damaged, he said. Security forces backed by tanks and warplanes have been battling militants in Swat for more than a year. They opened a second major front in the nearby tribal region of Bajur in August.

U.S. officials, who blame militants based in Pakistan for the escalating insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, have applauded the crackdown and called for its expansion to more areas of the lawless frontier zone.

However, there are doubts about whether Pakistani security forces can defeat the militants without inflicting heavy civilian casualties and eroding support for the country's pro-Western government.

Officials and analysts suspect that al-Qaida is regrouping in the border zone and may again be plotting terror attacks in the West. The area is seen as a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden.

Police said Wednesday that Pakistani intelligence agents had re-arrested an American detained and then released after he tried to enter Pakistan's tribal areas close to the Afghan border earlier in the week.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said American officials have visited and spoken with the man, identified by police as Jude Kenan, and were trying to assist him.