A suicide bomber struck a restaurant in volatile northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 11 people including militants opposed to the country`s top Taliban commander, intelligence officials said, according to Ninemsn.

Pockets of northwest Pakistan are strongholds for Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militant groups, not all of whom get along.

Even as Pakistan has battled the extremists and the US has carried out dozens of missile attacks against the militants - including a suspected American strike that killed eight on Wednesday - the armed groups have also attacked one another.

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The attack on Thursday morning occurred just outside the South Waziristan tribal region near the town of Tank at a roadside restaurant where some two dozen militants loyal to Turkistan Bittani were eating, two intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Several other people were wounded in the attack, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to the speak publicly to the media.

Bittani was not present. South Waziristan is the stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, a Bittani rival.

The tribal region also was the target of Wednesday`s alleged US missile strike, whose death toll included several foreigners, according to two other intelligence officials said. Wednesday`s strike damaged two vehicles near Makeen, a town that borders Afghanistan.