An anti-Taliban tribal elder has been killed in Pakistan after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the country’s conflict-plagued northwest, police say.

The blast occurred in the town of Baka Khel Wazir, located 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of the city of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, on Sunday.

Malik Sayed Ali Wazir, who headed a group of people fighting pro-Taliban militants, died on the way to hospital, Tahir Khan, a senior police officer in neighboring Bannu district, told AFP. His son also sustained injuries in the explosion.

No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but pro-Taliban militants have been blamed for such raids in the past.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the US in the so-called war on terror. Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping across the country.

Pakistan has been waging a major offensive against militant hideouts across the troubled northwestern tribal regions since June last year, when a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s faltering peace talks with the militants.

Pakistan’s army intensified its military operations after pro-Taliban elements killed over 150 people, most of them children, in an armed assault on a school in Peshawar in December 2014.

Pakistani officials say almost 3,000 militants have been killed since the launch of the operation.