A senior Pakistani official said Sunday that the government was forced to take stern action against Taliban.

Interior Advisor to Prime Minister Rahman Malik told the private Geo TV that Taliban conducted the bombing in a northwestern Pakistani town of Lower Dir. Taking the innocent children' s lives, they had unveiled their real face.

Malik said that the people could not tolerate elements perpetrating such dastardly acts and the government was being forced to take stern action. He also claimed that Taliban were taking the lives of the children through child suicide bombers.

Malik said that officials of the North West Frontier Province had been ordered to investigate into the Lower Dir incident on the directives of the president and prime minister especially, from the angle of finding out whether the children of the victim family were killed on their refusal to turn into suicide bomber.

At least 12 children were killed Saturday as they found a toy bomb and played with it outside a girls' primary school in Luqman Banda village of the Lower Dir town.

Meanwhile, a soldier was killed and four others were injured as the security forces clashed with Taliban militants in the Dir district Sunday, TV channels reported.

Geo TV reported that both sides exchanged fire in the Lower Dir district as the government deployed troops to check movement of the Taliban in the area, where Taliban have set up headquarters and hideouts.

There was no report of casualties of the Taliban.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2009)