KOHAT, Pakistan -- Four suspected Al-Qaeda militants and three Pakistani security men were killed on Wednesday in a clash near the northwestern town of Kohat, police said.

The encounter occurred when security personnel tried to stop a vehicle at a military checkpoint at Jarma Bridge, some 10km (6 miles) south of Kohat.

A policeman and a soldier were killed in a shootout with the suspected militants, while another policeman died afterwards when a grenade went off as they were emptying the vehicle of explosives, witnesses said.

Analysts say Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S. war on terror, appears to have stepped up efforts recently to track down Al-Qaeda and Taleban fugitives who may have fled to the country from neighboring Afghanistan.

Police official Nisar Tanoli told Reuters the men were coming from the direction of Miranshah, in north Waziristan in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, where many Al-Qaeda and Taleban fugitives are believed to be hiding.

"The vehicle was full of explosives, sophisticated weapons and grenades," a witness said.

He said the Pakistani troops had cordoned off the area and "no one is now going near the vehicle".

Two people were injured and later admitted to hospital in Kohat, police said.

Ten Pakistani soldiers and two suspected Al-Qaeda members were killed last week in a gun battle in south Waziristan, more than 200km (120 miles) southwest of Kohat.

The men were killed when Pakistani soldiers raided a house they suspected of being a hideout for Al-Qaeda operatives.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider was reported as saying Wednesday that the Al-Qaeda financed the deadly U.S. Consulate bombing in Karachi last month.

He said authorities had evidence that Al-Qaeda agents paid local "sectarian terrorists" to plan the June 14 car-bomb blast outside the consulate which killed 12 Pakistanis.

"Al-Qaeda had financed them," the minister was quoted as saying by the official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency.

Haider's statement is the first public accusation by Pakistan that Al-Qaeda was behind the attack.

It backs up earlier revelations by police intelligence officers that Al-Qaeda was suspected in both the consulate attack and the May 8 suicide car-bomb attack that killed 11 French naval engineers and three Pakistanis.

On Saturday a senior investigator told AFP that police "strongly suspected" Al-Qaeda agents had worked with militants of the outlawed Sunni militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi to plan both car-bomb attacks.

Police had earlier identified Lashkar-i-Jhangvi as "one of the gangs" behind the consulate attack and linked one of its activists to the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. An intelligence officer said last week that two detained Lashkar-i-Jhangvi "terrorists" had been working with "Al-Qaeda terrorists to hit targets in Pakistan."

In the past two weeks police have arrested more than 100 followers of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, the outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba network and Kashmiri militants Jaish-e-Mohammad in a bid to crush their suspected support of Al-Qaeda fugitives from Afghanistan.

Haider warned that Al-Qaeda agents were planning more strikes to avenge Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led antiterrorism coalition.

However he said the attacks and threats would not deter Islamabad's support of the international drive against terrorism.

Haider said some "foreigners" had fled Afghanistan for Pakistan in the face of the U.S.-led crackdown against terrorism.

President Pervez Musharraf said last month that Pakistan has arrested more than 300 suspected Al-Qaeda men since December.

Haider said Islamabad has asked U.S. forces in Afghanistan to intensify patrols to prevent infiltrations along Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan.