Militants blew up a girls' school in a restive Pakistani tribal region where a full-scale army offensive is expected against Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, officials said Thursday, reported AFP.
The incident came three days after rebels bombed two other schools, one in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the other in Bajaur tribal region.
"A girls' high school was blown up early Thursday morning in Shin Warsak town," 13 kilometres (eight miles) west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal region, local government official Allah Bagh Khan said.
He added that there was no loss of life in the explosion but it completely destroyed the school building.
Militants have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in Pakistan's northwest and its troubled tribal regions during the past couple of years.
At least 200 girls' schools in the scenic northwest Swat valley were bombed during a two-year Taliban campaign to enforce sharia law.
The army, which is wrapping up a two-month campaign in Swat, has said it is poised to launch an assault into the tribal areas along the Afghan border to track down senior Taliban leaders, including Mehsud.
In the region Thursday morning, the military fired artillery at Taliban hideouts in Spinkai Raghzai and Sararogha villages of South Waziristan, a security official said.
The number of casualties was not immediately known.
Dozens of people were killed in two US missile strikes in South Waziristan on Tuesday. The military put the number of casualties "somewhere between 20-30" but local officials said it could be as high as 60.
Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt has become a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after a US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.