MILITANTS killed six Pakistani soldiers in a shoot out, the army said on Saturday.

The shooting is the latest unrest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan.

The troops were killed in an overnight operation in North Waziristan district on Saturday, according to an army statement. It said six militants also were shot dead.

The army said that a separate operation killed two militants in Swat, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. One of them was said to be involved in an attack on a convoy of foreign ambassadors in the area earlier this month.

Also on Saturday, mobile phone services remained suspended in Islamabad as it entered a second day of a lockdown aimed at thwarting rallies in support of ex-leader Imran Khan. 

The former prime minister is in prison on multiple corruption charges.

Shipping containers blocked off the city’s entry and exit points, but videos from Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party showed supporters piled into vehicles and attempted to head toward Islamabad.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur and others in the convoy worked throughout the night to remove shipping containers from the road, according to the party.

The PTI later said that security forces arrested Mr Gandapur for entering Islamabad in defiance of a ban on rallies. 

Clashes broke out between Mr Khan supporters and security forces in D-Chowk, which is close to Parliament and the Supreme Court.

The PTI also said that it planned to hold a rally in Lahore.

As well as grappling with political instability arising from confrontations with Mr Khan’s party, Pakistani authorities are struggling to contain violence in south-western Balochistan province, where a blast killed three security personnel and injured four others on Saturday.

Police official Habib ur Rahman said that members of the Frontier Corps were on a routine patrol in Kalat district, about 44 miles south of the provincial capital Quetta, when a home made bomb was remotely detonated.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.