Militants kill two Pakistan women teachers

Islamist militants Wednesday shot dead two women teachers in Pakistan's tribal belt, where ground troops backed by jets stormed into a strategic Taliban bastion and fought bloody street battles.

The military said 30 "terrorists" were killed during fierce fighting, focused mostly in the crucial Taliban strongholds of Ladha and Sararogha in a third week of an offensive in South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

Pakistan has vowed to crush Tehreek-e-Taliban in South Waziristan, part of the semi-autonomous border zone that Washington calls the most dangerous place in the world and where Al-Qaeda are allegedly plotting attacks on the West.

In Bajaur district at the northern tip of the tribal belt, Islamist militants wielding automatic weapons opened fire on a vehicle carrying teachers from their school in the main town of Khar.

"Two women teachers were killed and two men were injured in the firing by militants," administration official Adalat Khan told AFP.

Islamist insurgents who oppose the education of girls have bombed and destroyed hundreds of northwestern schools in recent years, part of their deadly campaign to extend their grip and install sharia law.

Officials have warned that the Taliban and their allies will increase attacks in areas such as Bajaur to divert attention away from South Waziristan, where the military appear to be closing in on the insurgents.

A senior military official told AFP the army had "taken" the strategic town of Sararogha, where 16 insurgents were reported killed and eight soldiers wounded in the last 24 hours.

Sararogha is known in the tribal belt as the operational centre of former Tehreek-e-Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone attack in August, sparking a spate of deadly bomb attacks.

Pakistan launched its fierce air and ground offensive into the northwest region on October 17, with some 30,000 troops backed by fighter jets and helicopter gunships laying siege to the Pakistan Taliban's bolt-holes.

The military provides the only regular information coming from the frontlines. None of the details can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers barred from the area.

"Today, security forces entered into the important stronghold of terrorists, the town of Ladha. Intense fighting is taking place in (the) streets," the military said in its daily update.

The army said "security forces have cleared a major part" of Sararogha, but the senior official in northwest Pakistan said the town had been captured.

So far, the military claims to have killed more than 390 militants since the operation began, with 37 troops losing their lives.

Although South Waziristan is the focus of the military's anti-Taliban push, insurgent targets have been hit from the air in nearby districts.

At least eight militants were also killed and five others injured when jet fighters pounded their hideouts in Nawaz Kot village in North Waziristan, tribal police official Jamal Nasir told AFP.

The long-anticipated assault into South Waziristan came after a spring offensive in and around the northwestern Swat valley, which the government declared a success in July. However, sporadic outbreaks of violence continue.

Another offensive against Islamist militants in Bajaur ended in February but militant violence continues to rock the area.