(Adds detail, background) By Kamran Haider ISLAMABAD, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed three Pakistani paramilitary soldiers and wounded 18 on Monday in the latest incident in a wave of violence in the northwest of the country, police said. The surge of violence since last month, when a 10-month peace deal with militants broke down in the North Waziristan region, is a major problem for President Pervez Musharraf as he prepares to seek another term in office in an election due in weeks. "A bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a Frontier Corps checkpost and killed three soldiers," said Mahmood Alam, a police officer in Thal town, 300 km (190 miles) west of Islamabad, in North West Frontier Province, referring to a paramilitary force. While police said three soldiers had been killed, military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said according to his initial reports two soldiers had been killed and 16 wounded in the attack on the checkpost at a bridge in Thal. The attack came a day after army helicopter gunships killed 15 militants, most of them Uzbeks, in an air raid in neighbouring North Waziristan on the Afghan border, a hotbed of al Qaeda and Taliban support. More than 200 people, most of them soldiers and police, have been killed in the northwest since last month when the deal with militants in North Waziristan collapsed and the army stormed a radical mosque in the capital, Islamabad. Many al Qaeda and Taliban members took refuge in Waziristan and other remote, rugged regions on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border after U.S. and Afghan opposition forces defeated the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001. Pakistan has battled the militants and tried to isolate foreign al Qaeda members with deals aimed at strengthening traditional ethic Pashtun tribal power structures. But U.S. security officials say North Waziristan and other border regions are militant sanctuaries where al Qaeda and the Taliban are able to regroup and plot violence.
