Pakistani forces say enter a main Taliban base

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani soldiers have entered a main Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan near the Afghan border and are searching the area, the military said on Tuesday.

The army launched an offensive on October 17 aimed at rooting out and defeating Pakistani Taliban militants in their South Waziristan bastions.

Soldiers are advancing from three directions toward main bases, including the town of Sararogha, which the army said soldiers had entered.

"A search and clearance operation is on," the army said in a statement.

South Waziristan' rugged landscape of barren mountains and hidden ravines has become a global center of Islamist militancy and many foreign al Qaeda fighters are believed to be based there along with thousands of Pakistani insurgents.

The militants are being squeezed out of their strongholds but have retaliated by stepping up bomb attacks on urban targets.

At least 35 people were killed in the city of Rawalpindi on Monday as the government announced a reward for the capture, dead or alive, of the militant leaders.

Last week, in the deadliest attack in Pakistan in more than two years, more than 100 people were killed and scores more wounded when a car bomb went off in a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Earlier Tuesday, the army said 21 militants and a soldier had been killed in South Waziristan over the previous 24 hours.