Islamabad, May 18 (Xinhua) Twenty-seven Taliban militants were killed Monday in separate operations carried out by the security forces in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), officials said.

Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said three militant commanders were among the 27 killed. Three security personnel were also killed and 17 others injured in the operations, Abbas told reporters in a press conference here.

Islamabad, May 18 (IANS) Pakistan’s political parties across the spectrum have endorsed the military’s operations against the Taliban in the country’s restive northwest, a senior minister said Monday.

“All parties have unanimously approved a resolution in favour of the Swat operation,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said.

Islamabad, May 18 (Xinhua) More than 1.6 million people have been displaced in Pakistan’s troubled North West Frontier Province (NWFP), as the battle against the Taliban hots up, officials said Monday.

About 164,000 people have fled their homes in the Malakand region alone since the military operation started in the area in late April.

Islamabad, May 18 (IANS) Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that the Taliban have spent huge sums of money to lure youths to carry out suicide attacks in the country.

He said: “They (Taliban) bought youths from the poor families in half a million to 2.5 million rupees (about $30,802) for suicide attacks.”

Islamabad, May 18 (IANS) Allaying fears that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal might fall into the hands of the Taliban, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Monday said: “If we can make nuclear assets, we can also secure them”.

Anti-Pakistan forces are using the Taliban to destabilise the country, he told reporters after visiting a relief camp in Mardan in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Islamabad, May 18 (IANS) Urging consensus across the political spectrum on combating terror, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Monday that operations against the Taliban in the restive northwest would continue till the militants were eliminated and civilians uprooted by the conflict able to return to their homes.

“Unless political forces step in to resolve the situation, there is no guarantee of a sustainable solution against terrorism and extremism,” he said while addressing an all-party conference called to brief the country’s political leaders on the security forces’ action in Swat and two other districts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Tehran, May 18 (DPA) Iran has postponed a security meeting scheduled for Tuesday with the presidents of neighbours Afghanistan and Pakistan, ISNA news agency reported Sunday.

The presidential office Saturday had announced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to host his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari respectively, on Tuesday in Tehran.

Islamabad, May 17 (DPA) Pakistani soldiers moved into a key Taliban-dominated town in the Swat valley Sunday, the military said, intensifying the offensive that had displaced over one million people.

Ground troops entered the strategically important town of Matta and the nearby Kanju area to eliminate “miscreants and terrorists”, and asked locals to identify the Taliban targets.