MIRAMSHAH, July 21: Members of the grand inter-tribal jirga held a meeting with militant commanders in Datakhel on Saturday as a tense calm prevailed in the North Waziristan Agency.

Officials said that members of the jirga, who arrived here on Thursday, met the militant commanders at an undisclosed location in Datakhel area near Miramshah. During the meeting, they said, local Taliban made known their conditions for the revival of the now-scrapped peace deal signed on September 5.

The officials refused to provide details of the first round of talks, saying negotiators were likely to shift to a Peshawar venue within the next two days to discuss Taliban’s new conditions with NWFP Governor Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai.

Maulvi Nek Zaman, MNA, who played a key role in resuming contacts with the militant outfits, has now distanced himself from the negotiations. Sources said he was not present during talks.

Despite resuming talks with the jirga members, militants continued their guerrilla activities in the volatile region on Saturday, and carried out attacks on government installations.

Witnesses said that a rocket hit the roof of a girls’ degree college building in Miramshah, but no casualty was reported.

On Friday night, miscreants took away furniture from a bank in the main bazaar.

Sources said that militants blew up three abandoned checkpoints of the Khasadar Force near Miramshah and three others in the adjacent Frontier Region Bannu on Friday night. A bomb went off near Chashma Bridge on Saturday evening, which did not cause damage.

Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj-Gen Waheed Arshad said in a retaliatory action seven miscreants, who fired bullets and rockets on a security check-post in the Ghulam Khan area of Miramshah, had been killed. He said the troops had surrounded the miscreants and were trying to arrest them. He claimed that the security personnel had not suffered any casualty in the attack. He denied that the security forces had launched any operation in Miramshah area of Waziristan Agency.