Seven people were killed and two others injured in a missile attack in northwestern Pakistan's tribal area Monday morning, local TV channel Geo reported.

Unknown people launched the missile attack on the office of a religious group at Tehsil Bara in Khyber Agency, said the report.

The attack left seven people dead and two others injured. The office building was also demolished.

However, the chief of the group and other commanders escaped unharmed. Locals and volunteers tried to dig out people from debris, according to Geo.

No group has claimed responsibility for the missile attack.

Security forces launched an operation against local pro-Taliban militant groups in Tehsil Bara on Saturday. Local newspapers reported Monday that the security forces had secured Bara Town and some of its surrounding areas in Khyber Agency on Sunday.

There are three religious groups operating in Bara Town and they came under attack in the operation, according to The Nation newspaper.

Reports said that the group which was targeted in the missile attack was one of the three religious groups targeted by security forces.

Pakistani security forces Saturday launched a major operation against militant groups in Khyber Agency in a bid to establish the writ of the government in the area.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Sunday scrapped all its agreements with the government in protest over the operation in Khyber Agency.

The new coalition government, which came into shape in March, has been talking to tribal elders, aiming to inking peace agreements with militant groups in the tribal belt of the country.

The peace talks between Pakistani government and tribal elders irked the United States-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, who claimed that pro-Taliban militants might regroup in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and launch attacks against coalition forces fighting Taliban in Afghanistan.

Talking to Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who called on him at President's Camp Office in Rawalpindi on Friday, President Pervez Musharraf said that terrorists must be crushed with an iron hand.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has given full authority to the army chief in connection with the military operation in northwestern Pakistan.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2008)