Over 60 killed on Pakistani border

US, Afghan and Pakistani forces have killed more than 60 suspected foreign militants and Taliban insurgents during the past three days in a series of clashes in restive tribal lands in the North-West Frontier region, military officials said yesterday.

The fighting follows a warning by a senior US official last week that forces on both sides of the border needed to squeeze the frontier region where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden might be hiding.

Also last week, a Pakistani general warned tribesmen in the North Waziristan region of an imminent offensive unless they surrendered foreign militants living in their midst.

Early yesterday, Pakistani troops killed 17 militants, some believed to be from Central Asia, along with women and children, after coming under fire when they surrounded two houses near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal agency on the border with Afghanistan, the military said.

The Pakistan army offensive in North Waziristan coincides with President Pervez Musharraf's order for a countrywide crackdown on Islamist militants in the wake of revelations of Pakistani connections to the bomb blasts in London on July 7. Tension has been building for months in North Waziristan since the army completed a string of offensives against al Qaeda militants in neighbouring South Waziristan.

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 militants used women as shields as they tried to flee, and some women joined in the fighting.

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

Residents of Miranshah, 300 kilometres southwest of Islamabad, said troops had cordoned off the area.

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