PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Suspected Islamic militants killed a policeman and injured two other police officers in a rocket attack Friday in northwest Pakistan, an official said.

The attack occurred in Kabbal town in the picturesque Swat valley, where security forces have been engaged for months in operations against militants led by pro-Taliban cleric Mullah Fazlullah.

The policemen were part of a team conducting an operation in the town after militants attacked a security force post on Thursday in the same region, killing a paramilitary soldier, an official said.

"They came under rocket attack when they were travelling in a van, resulting in the death of one policeman and injuries to two others," local police official Jan Bahadur told AFP.

Bahadur said security forces detained 35 suspects during the operation in which security forces demolished three houses belonging to wanted militants.

Suspected militants also set fire to an empty girls school in neighbouring Kanju town on Thursday night, another police official said, the third such attack in the region in a week.

Militants are fighting security forces to control the area and enforce Taliban-style laws, under which education for girls is forbidden.

Swat, a onetime popular tourist area, has been wracked by clashes between militants and troops since late last year, part of a wave of violence across Pakistan that has left at least 2,000 people dead since early 2007.

Separately, at least seven people were injured in a bomb blast at a tea stall in the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of restive southwestern Baluchistan province, senior police official Muhammad Akbar told AFP.

Police have stepped up security in Quetta, he added.

Impoverished Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has been wracked by an insurgency waged by ethnic Baluch tribes seeking more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.

Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004.

The province has also been hit by attacks blamed on Taliban militants.

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