Tribal elders tried again on Tuesday to persuade al Qaeda fighters and their tribal allies to surrender and end a bloody week-long confrontation near the Afghan border.
While fighting in South Waziristan eased off, attackers fired a rocket into a military camp in another remote border region, killing three soldiers, officials in the area said.
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in another tribal area near the Khyber Pass to demand an end to the operation against militants. The protesters, many brandishing automatic rifles, also denounced the killing of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin by Israeli forces.
In South Waziristan, tribal elders met representatives of the rebels for a second day on Monday and presented government demands, including the surrender of the gunmen.
"We are quite optimistic that there will be some positive development today," elder Waris Khan Afridi told Reuters before their departure.
The army says it has hundreds of militants and their Pakistani tribal allies surrounded in a pocket of rugged territory near the Afghan border.
At least 13 civilians have been killed and anger over the offensive is simmering. Conservative Islamic clerics have denounced it and there have been protests in nearby towns.
Nevertheless the army maintains that most of the tribes are willing to cooperate.
On Tuesday a delegation from a hard-line Islamist group met local authorities and promised to hand over any foreign militants they found in their region. Residents say the meeting took place after tribesmen expressed concern that a military operation might take place there.
Four young victims were brought to hospital in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, 130 km south-east of Wana, on Monday.
The four boys, ranging in age from five to nine, were playing in fields near their village near Wana when they came under fire.
"How long will it take? It hurts," cried eight-year-old Azam Tariq as doctors prepared to operate on his wounded legs.
His five-year-old cousin, Wahid Noor, lay unconscious nearby.
The father of two of the wounded boys said he had no idea who fired on them. "I don't know what happened. We were sitting at home when this happened," the man said.
Pakistan, while a supporter of the US war on terror, had been coming under pressure for not doing enough to root out militants from its remote mountains on the Afghan border.
The Pakistani sweep of the border comes as US troops in Afghanistan step up the hunt along that side of the border.
The Pentagon calls the twin searches a "hammer and anvil" operation.
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