A suicide bomber killed a Pakistani soldier and wounded nine on Tuesday, highlighting the growing militant threat a day after the top US commander in the region held security talks with Pakistani leaders. The attack on a paramilitary post in the northwestern town of Doaba was the latest in an intensifying campaign by Islamist militants that has raised fears for Pakistan, a nuclear-armed US ally also facing an economic crisis. Doaba police official Omar Faraz Khattack said initially the soldiers were wounded: “One of them died on the way to hospital and one is seriously wounded”. Another police officer said a human head, apparently that of the suicide bomber, had been found at the scene. Violence has intensified in Pakistan, most of it in the northwest, since last year with a series of suicide attacks, most on the police, military and political leaders, in which hundreds of people have been killed. The military has been battling Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants in two parts of the northwest since August, and the militants have stepped up their attacks in response. Warplanes hit militant positions in the Bajaur region on Tuesday but there was no word on casualties, a military official said. Two rockets landed near the runway at the airport in the northwestern city of Peshawar late on Monday but caused no damage. General David Petraeus arrived in Pakistan on Sunday at the beginning of his first foreign tour since taking charge of US Central Command, underscoring U.S. concern about a country seen as crucial to stability in Afghanistan and to defeating al Qaeda. US analysts say Pakistan is facing a major threat from Islamist militants at a time when its new civilian government is engulfed in economic problems. The United States says militant sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan are the biggest threat to Afghan security. The Petraeus visit comes as relations between the United States and Pakistan have been strained by a series of cross-border US strikes, most by missile-firing pilotless drone aircraft, on militant targets in Pakistan. - Reuters __
