Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (42949)	6/28/2002 4:55:21 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Pakistan military helicopters ferried troops into rugged mountains along the remote tribal belt bordering Afghanistan on Friday as a massive manhunt for al-Qaeda fighters involved in a shootout that killed 10 soldiers moved into its third day. The troops were dropped onto mountain peaks in Southern Waziristan district to track down some 40 al-Qaeda militants who fled after the firefight during a raid on their hideout on Tuesday night, security officials said. More troop reinforcements had reached the army camp in the district's main town of Wana to join the hunt, they said. But despite operations involving hundreds of soldiers and paramilitaries on the ground and in the air, none of the al-Qaeda fugitives from Tuesday night's raid have been captured. Soldiers meanwhile were pressing tribal elders to lead them to the al-Qaeda fugitives, and threatening to destroy their homes if they were found to be sheltering the militants. Troops sealed off the bazaar in Azam Warsak, the village where the raid took place, and were taking "more punitive measures against" the local Sarke Khel tribe who are believed to have hidden the militants, sources said. Powerful local tribal chiefs met with local military commanders on Friday and promised not to give refuge to the estimated hundreds of al-Qaeda or Taliban militants who have slipped over the border from the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan. "Today there was a big gathering of tribal elders at Wana and they vowed to support the ongoing operations against al-Qaeda," a resident of Wana told AFP by telephone, requesting anonymity. "They agreed that any tribesman found guilty of providing shelter to the wanted men would be fined 200,000 rupees and his house would be demolished." The raid, launched after tip-offs from US intelligence, targetted a tribal elder's sprawling mud-brick home where scores of armed al-Qaeda men and women had been hiding, residents and military officials have said. Residents said the groups were Chechens but officials quoted in local media on Friday speculated they may have been from Uzbekistan. Some 15 tribesmen were rounded up on Thursday for questioning about the location of the militants as paramilitaries demolished tribal homes in Khawaza Panga near Azam Warsak, tribal leader Purdil Wazir told AFP. Tribal leaders had on Thursday asked the local military chiefs to give them 24 hours to produce the militants, but none had so far been handed over. Paramilitaries were conducting house-to-house searches in a 100-square kilometer stretch of mountainous terrain, an interior ministry official said. The deaths of the Pakistani troops marked the first combat loss for Pakistani forces since they took up the hunt with US forces for pockets of al-Qaeda and Taliban in the tribal belt. The deaths of the soldiers has sparked renewed criticism among Pakistanis of Islamabad's role as a key frontline partner in the US-led campaign to crush al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies.