Islamabad - One paramilitary soldier was killed and another injured on Thursday when pro-Taliban militants targeted a security checkpoint in Pakistan's restive north-west Swat district, the military said.

The rebels attacked a post jointly manned by local police and Frontier Corps troops in the Kabal area at around 2:30am (2130 GMT Wednesday), a security official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on condition of anonymity.

"The security forces suffered casualties when the militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade during the gunfight," the official said.

There were no reports of any rebel being killed or injured in the crossfire.

Violence swept through Swat, a picturesque mountain district that used to be a tourists' haven, when the military launched an offensive against the supporters of a local radical cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, late last year.

The full-fledged operation came after Fazlullah's men took control of key towns in Swat to enforce self-defined Mohammedan laws and established a parallel Islamic judicial system.

They also intensified their attacks, including suicide bombings, on government troops to take revenge for the killing of more than 100 people, mostly militants, in a commando raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque in July 2007.

A fragile ceasefire was reached in March after newly-elected government in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) offered peace talks with the pro-Taliban fighters to tackle the growing militancy through negotiations rather than military means.

Authorities in NWFP also released Fazlullah's father-in-law, Sufi Mohammed, who was in police custody for the nearly seven years for sending hundreds of men to neighbouring Afghanistan to fight NATO-led international forces and Afghan troops.

However, top commander of Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, pulled out of the negotiations on April 28 after the government refused to withdraw army personnel from the conflict-hit Waziristan district and to remove security checkpoints.

"From today onwards we are free to attack security forces if they operate against us," said Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Mehsud, who is also blamed for the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Despite the break-off, the government is making efforts to resume negotiations with Mehsud through traditional tribal councils, and a group of elders reportedly met the militant leader at his hideout in North Waziristan on Tuesday.

One of the elders who talked to the fearsome commander told the English-language daily The News that Mehsud was willing to resume talks but said some elements within the government "wanted the turmoil to continue in the tribal areas along (the) border with Afghanistan so that their vested interests could be served better."

He also reiterated the militants' key demand of troops pull-out from the tribal areas before signing a peace accord with the government.

Pakistan has deployed around 100,000 soldiers in the rugged region to clamp down on the pro-Taliban fighters and prevent their cross-border attacks.

Meanwhile, around a dozen masked militants destroyed a government school for girls in Swat's Matta area by setting it ablaze early Tuesday. The four-room school building was completely gutted by fire, police said.

Though no one has claimed the responsibility for the arson, followers of Fazlullah are often suspected to be behind such incidents. A girls' high school was also burnt down in the valley's Charbagh area at the weekend. (dpa)