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A landmine and separate ambush killed 10 Pakistani troops near the Afghan border on Wednesday, in a sign that violence is spreading away from the frontlines of an anti-Taliban offensive.
Pakistan has pressed around 30,000 forces, backed by war planes and attack helicopters, into battle in a US-endorsed mission to wipe out the chief strongholds of Tehreek-e-Taliban in the tribal district of South Waziristan.
The district, one of seven in Pakistan's tribal belt, is in the border area with Afghanistan where US officials say al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on the West and Islamist militants are embedded in large swathes of the mountains.
Wednesday's deaths were reported in Mohmand, where the paramilitary Frontier Corps has been operating for well over a year against the Taliban, and after security officials warned that the militants are stepping up attacks elsewhere.
'Eight soldiers were martyred and two were wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine buried on the roadside,' Major Fazal ur-Rehman, spokesman for the Frontier Corps, said.
The attack happened on the outskirts of Safi town of Mohmand tribal district, the paramilitary said.
'The soldiers were on a routine patrol. The landmine was buried by militants. The explosion damaged the pick-up,' the spokesman said.
He added the incident was separate to a Taliban ambush that left two paramilitary personnel dead and eight others missing after militants attacked a another convoy nearby on Wednesday.
Two bodies were recovered after the ambush and 10 rebels killed when attack helicopters shelled suspected militant hideouts in the area.
Security forces launched a huge operation against Islamist militants in Mohmand and Bajaur in August 2008. In February, they said Bajaur had been cleared after months of fierce fighting, but unrest has rumbled on.
The United States has put Pakistan on the frontline of its war against al-Qaeda and has been increasingly disturbed by deteriorating security in the country where attacks and bombings have killed about 2,500 people in 28 months.
The government blames increasing attacks on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is the target of the Waziristan offensive and which wants to avenge the killing of their leader Baitullah Mehsud by a US missile in August.
A suicide car bomb tore through a crowded shopping street in the northwest town of Charsadda on Tuesday, killing 32 people in the third militant attack to strike the nuclear-armed country in as many days.
Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani termed the attacks on civilians 'cowardice and frustration'.
'Since terrorists were incapable of confronting the military operation, they were targeting innocent civilians,' Kayani said in a statement issued after a corps commanders' conference held at military headquarters in Rawalpindi.
He said the public should not be cowed by 'acts of terrorism', rather the resolve of the people should be further strengthened to 'eliminate the menace of terrorism in all its forms and manifestation', the statement added.
Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone on Tuesday that attacks on cities were part of a strategy.
The militia has embarked on a guerrilla war from the mountains of South Waziristan, he said, pledging: 'We will prove that we can fight for years.'
The army said on Wednesday that troops had killed seven militants in South Waziristan, which would bring to 502 the number reported dead since the battle against an initially estimated 10,000 Islamists began on October 17.
The army says 46 soldiers have been killed, a fraction of the number lost in past campaigns as security officials say that many Islamist rebels have fled to nearby tribal districts North Waziristan and Orakzai.
