(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-09 21:36

Lying at the gateway to Waziristan, the North West Frontier town of Bannu has suffered plenty of militancy itself.

In neighboring South Waziristan militants have been holding about 225 soldiers since the end of August.

Violence has surged in the lawless Waziristan region since militants scrapped a peace deal with authorities in July.

Attacks by suicide bombers have become commonplace, especially after the army stormed a mosque in Islamabad in July to crush an armed student movement.

A bomb wounded 17 people in a bazaar in Peshawar, the capital of the volatile North West Frontier Province, on Tuesday.

Unable to defeat the militants in Waziristan, having lost more than 1,000 men in three years, the Pakistan army had tried contain the problem by seeking a ceasefire last year.

Critics, including US generals, said the strategy effectively created a safe haven for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

There have been growing fears in the West that al Qaeda had regrouped in Waziristan and was organizing conspiracies in Western countries from there.

The militants had originally fled to the region after US-led forces drove them out of Afghanistan in late 2001.

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