At least three women and two children were among 16 people killed Sunday in the latest spat of sectarian clash to hit northwest Pakistan, local officials said.

Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribes have been engaged in intermittent fighting for several months in the Kurram district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Kurram, formerly a semi-autonomous area, has a history of bloody confrontations between tribes belonging to the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam that have claimed hundreds of lives over the years.

A convoy of Sunnis was traveling under the protection of paramilitary soldiers Saturday when they came under attack, a senior Kurram administration official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

"As a result, 14 people, including 3 women and 2 children, were killed, and six others were wounded," he said.

Frontier police responded and killed two of the attackers, who were identified as Shiites, he said.

The official said the latest attack had "sectarian motives" that "have plagued the region for the past two decades."

"Every conflict tends to take on a sectarian dimension," he said.

Other recent clashes in July and September killed dozens of people and ended only after a jirga, or tribal council, called a cease-fire.

Officials are attempting to broker a fresh truce.

Tribal and family feuds are common in Pakistan.

However, they can be particularly protracted and violent in remote areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where communities abide by traditional tribal honor codes.

The Shiite community in Pakistan, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, has long suffered discrimination and violence.