Pakistan kill 17 militants near Afghan border

By Haji Mujtaba

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – At least 17 people,
including suspected foreign militants and a Pakistani soldier,
were killed on Sunday in a clash in a tribal region near the
Afghan border, military officials said.

The clash took place after troops surrounded the suspects
in two houses near Miranshah, the main town of the North
Waziristan tribal region.

Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the
suspected militants opened fire on troops after they refused to
accept an appeal from the tribal elders to give in.

“They also threw hand grenades at the troops,” he told
Reuters.

“We returned the fire and as a result 17 people from the
militant’ side were killed,” Sultan said.

He said a soldier was also killed in the clash.

Residents of Miranshah, around 300 km (180 miles) southwest
of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, said the troops had
cordoned off the area after the clash.

“I have seen some body limbs and blood scattered on earth,”
a Reuters reporter at the scene said.

The North Waziristan region borders with Afghanistan’s
Paktika province where four U.S. soldiers were wounded on
Saturday when their vehicle was hit a home-made bomb, U.S.
military there said.

TENSION BUILDING

The Waziristan incident occurred two days after U.S. forces
based in Afghanistan killed 24 suspected al Qaeda militants and
their Taliban allies inside Pakistan in the same region.

Tension has been building for months in North Waziristan
since the army completed a string of offensives against al
Qaeda militants in neighboring South Waziristan.

Major-General Akram Sahi, military commander in North
Waziristan, this week ordered tribesmen to hand over foreign
militants hiding in the region or face an imminent offensive.

A senior U.S. administration official in Washington on
Thursday said the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan
needed to squeeze insurgents along the rugged border where al
Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden might be hiding.

Pakistan’s tribal belt is overwhelmingly Pashtun and most
people are deeply conservative Muslims, sharing common
religious and ethnic roots with Taliban fighters trying to oust
U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan.

On Saturday, thousands of Pakistani tribesmen shouting
anti-U.S. slogans attended funerals for three of 24 suspected
militants killed on Thursday night.

U.S. and Afghan officials often complain that the militants
launch attacks inside Afghanistan from the safety of Pakistan’s
tribal region.

Pakistan says it had deployed thousands of troops at its
long, porous border with Afghanistan and is doing all it can to
stem militant activity.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda and other
Islamic militants since throwing its lot behind the U.S.-led
war on terrorism. It has handed many of them over to the United
States.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider)