MIRANSHAH: A roadside bomb targeting a military convoy Wednesday killed two soldiers and wounded 14 others in North Waziristan, Officials said.

The bomb was planted along the route of a convoy of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Spinwam area about 40 kilometres north of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan region, they said.

The injured were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH).

The vehicle was partially damaged by the bomb attack.

“It was a remote controlled device and the target was a military convoy,” a security official in Miranshah said.

One vehicle in the 20-truck convoy was hit in the blast, which killed one soldier and wounded 15 other troops, he said.

Troops responded by launching a house-to-house search for militants while military helicopters shelled suspected hideouts, another official in the northwestern city of Peshawar said, confirming the casualties.

“We don't have details of militant losses,” he said.

North Waziristan, one of seven districts in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt,  has become the most notorious Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Islamabad has resisted US pressure to launch a full-scale offensive against insurgents in the area.

Attacks on the military are rare in the region as an influential local militant commander, Gul Bahadur, agreed not to attack Pakistani troops under a ceasefire accord signed with the authorities in 2007.