Peshawar: The army reported on Thursday that six Pakistani soldiers were killed in a gunfight with the military in a northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

After Pakistan launched a new offensive against militants in response to a resurgence of attacks, including a mosque bombing that claimed more than 100 lives in February, no militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the bloodshed.

Islamabad asserts that the militants, who seek to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law in Pakistan, use Afghanistan as a safe haven to organise and carry out their attacks. Kabul refutes this assertion.

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The Afghan Taliban government's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, will meet with his Chinese and Pakistani counterparts when he arrives in Islamabad on Friday.

In a statement, the army described the incident in North Waziristan, a region that has long been a haven for militants who operate on both sides of the border. "A fire exchange took place between terrorists and our own troops," the army said.

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It added that it was searching the area to see if any additional attackers were hiding and that three "terrorists" were also killed when the army engaged them.

Within a week, there had been a string of militant assaults, including one in which a suicide bomber drove his vehicle into a military base camp just outside of Pakistan's rough, lawless tribal region, killing three soldiers.

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The attacks against the state have increased since last year after the Pakistani Taliban revoked a cease-fire and peace negotiations with the government in Islamabad broke down. They are being carried out under the auspices of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organisation for several Sunni militant groups.

According to the government, the peace negotiations enabled the release from custody of hundreds of militants and their leaders, allowing them to reassemble and carry out new attacks.