TANK / MIRAMSHAH, Nov 10: A tribal elder was killed along with three supporters when their vehicle was blown up near Shakai in South Waziristan on Friday, witnesses and officials said.

The sources said that the vehicle on its way to Manto area hit a remote-controlled device near Shakai.

Two other people were injured.

The tribal elder was identified as Khan Jan Wazir. He belonged to the Khanan group, which is supporting efforts to drive out foreign elements from the area, the sources said.

On Thursday night, a paramilitary camp in the Mirali town of North Waziristan Agency came under rocket attack while a contractor supplying ration to troops was kidnapped, the sources said.

Five rockets were fired at the paramilitary camp. No casualty was reported.

Local people said two rockets landed near the Mosaqi village and two others exploded in the Aisori village.

Separately, masked men kidnapped a food contractor along with his vehicle from Mirali.

The contractor, accompanied by troops in civvies, was going from Mirali to Bannu when unidentified armed men stopped his pickup. They alighted soldiers from the vehicle before taking away the contractor to an unknown destination.

The contractor’s name could not be ascertained.

Meanwhile, unidentified assailants ambushed a tribal elder when he was travelling in his vehicle from Miramshah to his village. Malik Azher Khan Baber escaped unhurt.

Witnesses said Malik Azher came under fire near Sarobi village. The vehicle was badly damaged.Sources said that a list of wanted people distributed purportedly by militants a few months ago contained Malik Azher’s name.

In a related development on Friday, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said that security forces had been given the go ahead to take stern action against the North Waziristan militants if they violated the Sept 5 peace agreement by infiltrating into Afghanistan or attacking national installations.

"The military authorities are fully complying with the peace agreement and in case tribal people violated it, the army will have no other option but to take action against those who do not want peace," said Mr Sherpao while talking to reporters after attending the inauguration ceremony of the Chakian-Bhimbar Trar Road in a rural area near Islamabad.

Militants and tribal elders signed the peace accord in North Waziristan, pledging to halt the cross-border movement and attacks on government installations and security forces.

The interior minister said the government wanted to sign such agreements with people of other tribal areas too.

Justifying the Oct 30 air strike in Bajaur, he said the seminary targeted was being used as a terrorist training ground. "We would not spare any madressah involved in such activities.”

To a question about the US mid-term polls, he said the result of the elections would not affect the war on terror.

"We are not fighting this war under US pressure. It is our own fight and we have lost over 400 personnel of our security forces in counter-terrorism activities," he said.

Mr Sherpao said the identity of the Dargai suicide bomber had not been ascertained yet and his accomplice, who escaped from the sugarcane fields, had not been traced.

He said President Pervez Musharraf would not dissolve assemblies and they would complete their five-year tenure.

He criticised the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal for not condemning the Dargai suicide attack.

He said the MMA had launched an anti-government propaganda by `manipulating’ facts about the Bajaur incident to get political mileage for next elections.

He pointed out that the MMA had been able to establish its governments in the NWFP and Balochistan after it got people’s sympathies as a result of the US-Afghan war. But its performance in the two provinces remained unsatisfactory during the past five years, he said, adding that next elections would be fought on the basis of performance.