49 people have been killed in a gun battle between pro-Taliban Islamist militants and Pakistani security forces in a tribal region near the Afghan border yesterday.
Pakistani army helicopters pounded mountains near the Afghan border today after the clashes.
The violence in the remote, semi-autonomous tribal region awash with weapons underscores the problems President Pervez Musharraf faces on his front in the US-led war on terrorism.
The violence erupted yesterday as US President George W. Bush met Musharraf in the capital, Islamabad, 300 km (200 miles) to the northeast of Miranshah.
The presidents reaffirmed their commitment to the war on terrorism.
"Fighting continued throughout the night with both sides using heavy weapons," a resident of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan region, said today.
A military spokesman said 46 militants and three government troops were killed in Saturday's clashes.
The overnight exchanges of fire eased off in the morning but helicopter gunships later fired rockets into mountains to the east of Miranshah, sending plumes of smoke and dust into the sky.
Virtually all of the town's shops were boarded up and streets and markets deserted.
The ruins of a bank attacked and set on fire in Saturday's fighting smouldered, the resident said.
Ethnic Pashtuns inhabit Waziristan as well as Afghan areas on the other side of the border and many people support the Taliban, most of whose leaders and rank-and-file are Pashtun.
Many al-Qaeda members fled to Waziristan after US and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001, and they were given refuge by conservative Pakistani Pashtun clans.
The Pakistani government has been trying to clear foreign militants from the border and subdue their Pakistani allies and hundreds of people have been killed in clashes since late 2004.