The highest number of dead was in the restive Swat valley, which was until last year a popular tourist destination, but has since become a battleground after a pro-Taliban cleric began a push to impose Islamic Sharia law.

Fifteen militants and three soldiers were killed late Saturday in an ongoing military operation against fighters loyal to the cleric Maulana Fazlullah, a senior military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

In a separate development, a local newspaper journalist was shot dead on Saturday night in Mingora, the main town in Swat valley, after failing to stop as a military convoy passed.

A police official said the shots were fired because suicide bombers have previously attacked security force convoys in a similar manner.

Elsewhere, an ongoing operation against militants in Bajaur district saw at least 14 insurgents killed Sunday when Pakistani jets pounded suspected Taliban hide-outs in the towns of Damadola, Harkai and Siprai.

"According to reports received here airstrikes have killed 14 militants and destroyed several underground bunkers and ammunition dumps used by them," local government official Mohammad Jamil told AFP.

Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led toppling of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 and have since set up training camps.

The Pakistani military said last month that some 1,500 rebels and 73 soldiers had died and hundreds more militants been captured since the start of their operation in Bajaur in August.

Suspected US missile strikes have also targeted militants in the border regions.

Meanwhile, soldiers killed seven militants and injured nine others in Mohmand, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, a paramilitary spokesman told AFP.

The gunfight erupted late Saturday when around 200 Taliban militants surrounded a checkpoint near Karapa village and started firing rockets, he said.

Militants also blew up a bridge on a key road in Mohmand, but the blast caused no casualties and the repair work had been started, he said.

Separately in Baluchistan province, southwest Pakistan, a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorbike killed a pedestrian and wounded four others in the town of Sui.

Similar bombings have been blamed on separatist, secular tribal rebels.

earlier related report
Afghan probe confirms 37 civilians killed in US air strike
An Afghan investigation has found that 37 civilians were killed in US air strikes that hit a wedding party, along with 26 Taliban, the Kandahar provincial government said Friday.

President Hamid Karzai had said "around 40" civilians were killed in the strike in the province's Shah Wali Kot district on Monday that followed an ambush on international soldiers.

The Kandahar government sent a team of officials and police to Wacha Bakhta village to investigate the incident, the latest in a series that have caused friction between Kabul and its international allies.

"Our investigations show that 37 civilians and 26 Taliban were killed in the air strike and another 31 civilians and seven militants were wounded," the government said in a statement.

It was not clear how many were women and children, it said.

The militants had left 15 bodies at the scene and took the remainder and the wounded with them, the statement said.

The troops had been on patrol around the village, which is about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Kandahar, when they came under attack by militants, the investigation found, confirming a statement by the US military.

The forces responded with ground and air fire which also hit a wedding party, it said.

The US force in Afghanistan said earlier this week it could not confirm civilian casualties but was investigating.

Villagers said a wedding lunch had just ended and the bride was preparing to say farewell to her family when the fighting started, lasting for several hours until midnight.

The government has given 2,000 dollars to families for each person killed and 160 dollars for those wounded, the statement said.

Karzai also spoke by telephone Friday to the bereaved families and extended his condolences, his office said separately.

He made a similar telephone call to families in Gormach district of the northwestern province of Badghis where police said seven more civilians were killed in strikes again militants on Wednesday.

The allegations are being investigated.

International military forces in Afghanistan have been criticised for causing civilian casualties in military operations, most often air strikes, against insurgents.

The forces, which have tens of thousands of troops here trying to put down a Taliban-led insurgency, say they take care to be precise in their targeting and insurgents sometimes use people as "human shields."

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