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Search for Al-Qaeda Continues in Pakistan
By
Asif Farooqi, IOL
Pakistan
Correspondent
ISLAMABAD
, June 27 (IslamOnline) - Pakistani and
U.S.
security forces nabbed a several foreign nationals in the last 36
hours from the tribal areas of
Pakistan
in a massive manhunt following a deadly shootout with suspected
Al-Qaeda fugitives which left ten Pakistani soldiers and two terror
suspects were killed Wednesday June 26, well placed government sources
said.
Jointly
organized by the
U.S.
and Pakistani intelligence networks, the search operation was
continuing Thursday evening, June 27. Till now, more than 50
non-Pakistani suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters have been
captured in the
South Wazirsitan
agency and other places along the Pak-Afghan border west of
Islamabad
, the sources confirmed.
Most
of those arrested in joint raids in different residential localities
in the lawless Pakistani tribal belt are nationals of
Central
Asian
Republics
. Chechens, Uzbek, Tajiks and some other nationalities have been
confirmed. These fighters, after slipping into Pakistani controlled
tribal areas bordering
Afghanistan
following the fall of
Kabul
to U.S.-led Afghan groups, took refuge with some sympathetic tribal
elders.
Joint
Pakistani and
U.S.
teams were grilling these so-called terror suspects in secluded
interrogation centers close to the Afghan border, the sources said.
Pakistani
and
U.S.
forces have been hunting for such refugees in these areas for almost
six months now. But since the deadly battle of Wednesday, the manhunt
has attained new importance as the Pakistani forces are now on their
heals to get those escaped the scene after killing ten of their
colleagues in fierce gunbattle in the town of
Wana
.
Hundreds
of Pakistani troops were reportedly combing the high mountains and
residential areas along the Afghan border Thursday to hunt down
fleeing suspected terrorists.
Analysis
of the compound confirmed Thursday that at least 40 people
participated in the attack on Pakistani soldiers when they tried to
break in early Wednesday morning. Two of them were killed and one was
arrested. The rest are still at large.
Pakistan
Army troops are carrying out house-to-house searches in villages along
the Afghan border," Brigadier Javed Cheema, chief of Interior
Ministry's Crises Management Cell, confirmed to the IslamOnline.
He expressed ignorance, however, on the arrest made early Thursday
morning.
The
search operation was being conducted over a 100 kilometer of tribal
belt, he said.
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