ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber on Thursday attacked a police station in northwest Pakistan, killing four security officers — the latest in a series of blasts that are eroding confidence in the country.
The attacker struck in the mountain valley of Swat, one of several regions where government forces have been struggling to defeat Taliban militants.
Police said insurgents opened fire on their station in Mingora, Swat's main town, after midnight with guns and at least two rockets before a man drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the police compound.
District police chief Dilawar Bangash said one officer and three paramilitary troops died and another 26 people were injured, many of them seriously. The police station and several shops were badly damaged, he said.
Security forces have been battling militants in Swat for over a year. They opened a second major front in the nearby tribal region of Bajur in August.
U.S. officials, who blame militants based in Pakistan for the escalating insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, have applauded the crackdown and called for its expansion to more areas of the lawless frontier zone.
However, there are doubts about whether Pakistani security forces can defeat the militants without inflicting heavy civilian casualties and eroding support for the country's pro-Western government.
On Thursday, a suspected U.S. missile strike hit a house in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan's border, killing one purported foreign militant and injuring another, officials said. Two Pakistani intelligence officials said reports from informants and field agents suggested that one suspected foreign militant died in the attack and that another foreigner was injured.
Asked if any al Qaeda leaders had been hit, the officials said that while Arabs had been living in the house, the identities of the victims were not yet clear. They said foreign and Pakistani militants had frequented the house in a remote, forested area, since its owner fled the tribal region last year.
Officials and analysts suspect that al Qaeda is regrouping in the border zone and may again be plotting terror attacks in the West. The area is seen as a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden.