The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Peshawar

A suicide bomber killed at least three troops when he rammed an explosives-packed vehicle into an army checkpost in Pakistan's restive northwest on Monday, the army said.

The attack took place in the Khwaza Khela area of the Swat valley. "The bomber came in a car and rammed it into the checkpost. Resultantly, three troops were killed and three others wounded," a spokesman for the army told AFP.

The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination, featuring Pakistan's only ski resort.

But the region has been turned into a battleground since Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law. Violence elsewhere in the region has left at least five suspected militants dead.

Pakistan is engaged in a pair of major offensives against militants who use pockets of its northwest to stage attacks on American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Insurgents have retaliated by staging a wave of attacks throughout Pakistan.

The suicide attack Monday occurred in Gashkor, a village in the Swat Valley, said Ali Rehman, a police official. Swat, a former tourist destination, is the scene of one of the two offensives.

The other offensive is focused on Bajur, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan and a rumored hiding place of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.