Pakistan says kills 17 militants near Afghan border

By Haji Mujtaba

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – At least 17 suspected
foreign militants, along with women and children, were killed
in a clash with Pakistani security forces on Sunday near the
Afghan border, the Pakistan military said.

Troops surrounded the suspects before dawn in two houses
near Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal
region.

Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the
militants opened fire after refusing an appeal from tribal
elders to surrender, and soldiers returned fire.

A military statement said the militants used women as
shields as they tried to flee, while some women took part in
the fighting.

“The militants and women fired back and lobbed grenades
that resulted in shahadat (martyrdom) of one soldier,” the
statement said.

It was not immediately clear how many women or children
were involved.

Several of the militants were believed to be from central
Asia. Four Kazakhstan passports were recovered.

The military statement said arms and ammunition, including
detonators, explosive material, switches, circuit diagrams and
other material, were found in the hideouts.

AREA CORDONED OFF

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

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

Two days earlier, U.S. forces based in Afghanistan killed
24 suspected al Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies on the
Pakistan side of the border in North Waziristan. The militants
had earlier fired on an Afghan army post killing one soldier.

On Thursday, the Afghan army and U.S.-led forces killed 20
Taliban insurgents and their allies on the Afghan side of the
border in Khost province.

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

Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops along its long,
porous frontier with Afghanistan, but U.S. and Afghan officials
complain the insurgents are coming from across the border.

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, Pakistan’s military commander in
North Waziristan, this week ordered tribesmen to hand over
foreign militants or face an imminent offensive.

Pakistan’s tribal belt is overwhelmingly Pashtun, as are
the Taliban fighters trying to oust U.S.-led forces from
Afghanistan.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider)