Islamabad  - Pakistan's army on Wednesday claimed it had killed some 30 militants in a security action in the restive Swat district of North-Western Frontier Province.

"Our ground troops which were backed by helicopter gunships started a search and cordon operation in the Koza Bandi area of the district that resulted into the killing of 30 miscreants," army spokesman Major Murad Khan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Around 35 militants were injured in the action and eight of them were arrested, he added.

Swat was a popular tourist destination until the middle of last year when the followers of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah launched an armed campaign to enforce Taliban rule in the region.

Islamabad dispatched around 20,000 additional troops to the district to quell the rebellion, triggering months of fighting that killed hundreds.

The new civilian government started peace talks with Swat militants in March immediately after it took over but the policy did not stop the violence, forcing the government to resume the security operation.

A spokesman for Fazlullah claimed on Tuesday his comrades had abducted two Chinese engineers with their local driver and a security guard when they were returning from the neighbouring district of Dir on Friday after repairing a communications tower belonging to the China Mobile Pakistan Company.

"We kidnapped them to avenge the Pakistani government's constant bombardment and shelling on innocent civilians and our colleagues," Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said.

On Wednesday the spokesman claimed responsibility for a gun attack on a convoy of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani just outside the capital Islamabad.

Gilani was not in his armoured limousine when two bullets fired by a long-range gun hit the vehicle's front side window Wednesday, causing only cracks in the ballistic glass. (dpa)