Over 90 including 2 Qaeda militants killed in Waziristan

ISLAMABAD, Oct 8 (KUNA) — Some 90 people including two Al-Qaeda suspects and over 10 villagers have been killed in two-day fierce fighting with security forces in Pakistan’s troubled North Waziristan tribal agency, bordering Afghanistan, said officials Monday.
Security forces launched an operation against militants near Mir Ali village on Sunday afternoon after attacks on check posts and convoys and reports that about 35 more soldiers have been kidnapped.
Forces backed by gunship helicopters and Jet fighters were still pounding militants’ suspected hideouts and intense gun-battle was still going on between the two sides, security officials told KUNA.
Military spokesman, Waheed Arshad, confirmed that 20 soldiers and 60 militants have been killed in clashes.
Officials said more than 65 militants, 20 soldiers, and 12 villagers including five women and two children have been killed in and another fifty others were wounded.
The officials said that two Arab Al-Qaeda suspects and their Uzbek accomplice were also killed in the fighting.
A tribal source claimed that more than 20 soldiers and about 90 militants have been killed. The source said several civilians were also killed, caught in crossfire.
The source added that hundreds of villagers have defected to safer areas as several houses were hit by stray mortar shells and the eruption of fighting has disabled electricity and telecommunication systems in the area.
The latest clashes have started in the agency, known to be a militant stronghold, as provincial and national assemblies re-elected President General Pervez Musharraf in uniform for another term in office.
President Musharraf has been a staunch US ally in the war on terrorism and crushing militancy has had been his rein’s main target.
Despite intense efforts to curb militancy in the bordering tribal belt, the security situation has been severed since state forces conducted a deadly raid on Lal Mosque in Islamabad.
In months of attacks and counterattacks, according to unofficial figures, more than a hundred soldiers and nearly 500 militants have been killed.