Posted on 06/29/2002 7:16:09 AM PDT by Ranger
Pakistani troops have narrowed the hunt for around 40 al-Qaeda fugitives involved in a deadly encounter with Pakistan forces to a small pocket in mountains along its western border, local tribal leaders said on Saturday.
Security forces suspect the fleeing al-Qaeda fighters may be on their way to the tribal belt town of Gul Kach, at the southern edge of South Waziristan district, some 25 kilometres from the rugged border with Afghanistan, tribal elders said.
The forces are concentrating on Gul Kach, which lies on a route to southwestern Baluchistan province from Azam Warsak, where the militants killed 10 Pakistani troops in a gunbattle at their hideout on Tuesday night.
The troops were attacked with grenades and machine gun fire as they raided a tribal elder's mud-brick fortress home where the militants, described by locals as Chechens, were hiding.
The deaths were the first among Pakistani forces since they began hunting down al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives from the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, and reignited anger among fundamentalist groups furious at Islamabad's alliance with the US in its campaign against the extremists.
A circuitous mountainous track winds through Gul Kach to Zhob district in Baluchistan, which neighbours the former Taliban's stronghold province of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Army troops and helicopters were heading towards the town, and a US aircraft was also seen flying overhead, tribesmen in South Waziristan told reporters.
They said the white craft may be a surveillance plane guiding the ground forces.
Some 600 Pakistani ground troops backed by helicopters have been scouring the remote mountain passes in a massive manhunt for the al-Qaeda escapees.
One of the militants, initially believed to be a Chechen national, was captured during the raid and two were killed.
Officials in Islamabad denied local media reports that several foreign al-Qaeda fugitives from the botched raid had been captured in the subsequent hunt.
"We have not arrested any foreigners. Some Pakistanis have been arrested and they are being interrogated but no foreigner has been arrested so far," Brigadier Javed Cheema, the head of the interior ministry's national crisis cell, told AFP.
"The operation is continuing and security forces are combing the area."
A government spokesman said a group of Islamic preachers was arrested from the tribal area during the search operation, "but they are not linked to al-Qaeda or Taliban," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
At least 15 tribesmen have been rounded up in the intensified hunt, suspected of giving refuge to the al-Qaeda group. The local Sarke tribe are believed to have hidden them.
Paramilitaries have been smashing the homes of tribesmen believed to have sheltered al-Qaeda fighters.
Soldiers pressing tribal elders to lead them to the al-Qaeda fugitives have threatened to destroy more homes if al-Qaeda operatives were discovered to have hidden in them.
The forces have threatened to fine those sheltering the extremists 200,000 rupees (3,330 dollars).
Around 1,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives from Afghanistan are believed to be roaming across both sides of the porous border area.
President Pervez Musharraf said last week that around 300 al-Qaeda agents had been rounded up in Pakistan since last December.
A fine?
Yeah, and if you don't pay the fine, they chop off your head ;o)
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