Ten Pakistani soldiers were killed during an overnight raid on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, an interior ministry official said on Wednesday.
”Ten members of our law enforcement agencies were killed during an exchange of fire at a suspected al-Qaeda hideout last night,” Brigadier General Javed Cheema, head of the interior ministry’s national crisis cell, said.
Two of the suspected al-Qaeda fugitives were also killed in the raid on a house in southern Waziristan district, some 25km from the Afghan border, Cheem added.
A third fugitive, a Chechen, was captured.
”The raid was conducted on a house where some non-Pakistanis were living. When Pakistani troops surrounded the area they encountered resistance, leading to fierce exchange of fire,” another senior interior ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
US and Pakistani agents have been jointly hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in western Pakistan’s tribal belt, where they are believed to have fled from the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
The head of the US Senate intelligence committee said Sunday that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was ”probably” hiding out in the tribal zone in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Cheema said he was unaware whether US forces were involved in the Tuesday night raid. The Pakistani victims included an army major, four soldiers and five paramilitary troops, another security official said.
It is the first time Pakistani forces, whose presence in the semi-autonomous region is unprecedented and was only announced this month, have been killed in the operations to capture al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the area.
American Federal Bureau of Investigation agents stationed in the tribal belt have survived repeated rocket attacks on their residences. – Sapa-AFP