Suspected Islamist militants blew up a police vehicle in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing seven people, including three policeman and three paramilitary troops, officials said. The vehicle was on a routine patrol on the outskirts of the town of Dera Ismail Khan when the bomb apparently planted in a dusty road exploded as it passed over it.

?It was a remote-controlled bomb,? Daar Ali Khattak, District Police Officer, told reporters. Khattak said a passerby was among the dead and hospital officials said five people were wounded, including two women. No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said Islamist militants were likely behind the blast.

A few hours later, a second bomb went off near the site of the first blast. A wall of a nearby government building collapsed, but there were no casualties, residents said. ?It appears to be the spillover of what is going on in Waziristan,? Sherpao told Reuters.

Nearly 200 pro-Taliban militants have been killed in clashes with security forces in the North Waziristan tribal region this month. Many al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban supporters fled to the semi-autonomous tribal belt after US and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban in Pakistani security forces have been trying to clear foreign militants from the area and subdue their Pakistani allies since 2004.