Militants attacked a Pakistani security force convoy near the Afghan border today, killing 16 soldiers a day after 16 people were killed in a suicide-bomb blast in the capital.
Pakistan has seen a surge in violence since government forces stormed Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, compound last week, ending a week-long siege and killing 75 supporters of hardline clerics.
"Sixteen soldiers have been killed and 14 wounded ... They used all kinds of weapons," military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said of the attack in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border, in northwest Pakistan.
Pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan vowed to attack security forces after abandoning a ten-month peace pact with the government on the weekend.
An intelligence official said the soldiers were on patrol in the Datta Khel area when they were attacked. Several militants were killed in fighting that followed the ambush, a military official said.
Police in Islamabad stepped up security as the death toll rose to 16 from yesterday evening's attack outside a court where the country's suspended chief justice had been due to speak.
More than 60 people were being treated for wounds after the attack in a car park where a stage had been set up for suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to address lawyers.
Mr Chaudhry, who has become a symbol of opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's eight-year rule, had not arrived to speak to lawyers at the time of the attack.
Attacks in the capital are rare compared with the northwest, where more than 100 people, most police and soldiers, have been killed in a spate of suicide blasts and shootings this month.