Six people have been killed in three separate incidents in Pakistan, four of them in the Bajaur tribal area near the Afghan border.

Four members of the Salarzai tribe peace committee died in the town of Salarzai, in Bajaur, when a suicide bomber targeted a convoy of Pakistani soldiers and elders from the committee.

In another incident in Bajaur, a security officer was killed by an improvised explosive device exploded.

Also on Saturday, in Shahukhel village, in Hangu district, a bomb was reported to have killed a nine-year-old child and wounded a teenager outside the house of an anti-Taliban elder.

Abdul Rashid, a district police chief, told the AFP news agency that the elder had organised a village force against the Taliban.

"The bomb hit two passer-by children. One of them died," Rashid said.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier on Saturday, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, declared the "backbone" of Islamist fighters had been broken.

In a televised address to the cadets at a Pakistan military academy in the northwestern town of Kakool, Kayani praised the role of his soldiers in fighting the Taliban.

"In the war against terrorism, our officers and soldiers have made great sacrifices and have achieved tremendous successes," he said. [The] terrorists' backbone had been broken."

Kayani has visited tribal areas near the Afghan border in recent weeks to boost the morale of troops deployed there to fight the Taliban, who often target security forces and government officials.