MIRANSHAH, PAKISTAN - Pakistani air strikes killed nine suspected militants Sunday, police and security officials said, in an ongoing bombardment aimed at weakening Taliban strongholds in the tribal northwest.

At least six alleged rebels linked to the hardline Taliban were killed in North Waziristan, while three more died in the Orakzai tribal district near the site of a military helicopter crash Friday which killed 26 security personnel.

Pakistan's security forces have vowed to hunt down Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud and his network in the lawless tribal belt, where Washington alleges Al-Qaeda fighters are also hiding out plotting attacks on the West.

'Six or seven militants were killed and four were injured when jet fighters bombed Taliban hideouts in different parts of Datta Khel,' in North Waziristan, Aziz Khan, a tribal police official, told AFP by telephone.

The air strikes Sunday morning hit the Bagan, Mohammad Khel and Syed Abad areas, about twenty kilometres (12 miles) west of Miranshah, the main district town in the semi-autonomous mountain region bordering Afghanistan.

An intelligence official in Miranshah confirmed the bombing and said they were still gathering information on casualties. Residents of the targeted areas said they saw six dead bodies, but added that civilians were also hurt.

'We were in our houses when war planes bombed the area,' local resident Mahmood Gul told AFP from Miranshah's main hospital, where he had taken his child for treatment after the boy was injured by shrapnel.

In the Orakzai region on Sunday, gunship helicopters shelled militant positions in the Oblan and Torchapper areas. 'At least three militants were killed and many injured in the shelling,' a military official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to disclose details of the operation to the media.

The bombardment hit close to the site of Friday's deadly crash, which the military blamed on a technical fault.

The Taliban, however, claim to have shot down the MI-17 in retaliation for the start of military operations in South Waziristan. Security forces are wrapping up a more than two-month-long campaign to dislodge Taliban fighters from northwest Swat valley, and are in the process of opening up a second front in the tribal region targeting Mehsud.

Local media on Sunday reported that up to 26 militants had been killed in air strikes in Orakzai the day before, but the paramilitary Frontier Corps military on Saturday confirmed just seven deaths in the operation.