Agence France-Presse,
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: Heavy fighting has killed at least 35 Islamic militants and two government troops in a Pakistani tribal area dubbed an Al-Qaeda safe haven by Washington, the military said Monday.
The latest clashes in the lawless North Waziristan tribal agency bordering Afghanistan came as pro-Taliban groups there warned Pakistani soldiers to quit fighting or face the “gift of death” through new suicide attacks.
Washington has intensified pressure on Islamabad to step up military action, warning it may launch strikes there — comments Pakistan called “irresponsible and dangerous.”
A wave of Islamist suicide attacks has claimed over 200 lives in Pakistan since US-ally President Pervez Musharraf ordered a raid on the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in the capital on July 10-11 and vowed to uproot extremism.
Amid a recent troop build-up in the troubled northwest, militants in North Waziristan eight days earlier tore up a shaky truce reached with the government last September, launching a spate of new attacks.
Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP Monday that at least 30 rebels died in a series of clashes since late Sunday, and five more were killed in a battle that continued Monday evening.
Two soldiers had been killed and another 12 wounded in the violence over the past 24 hours, he added, but gave no further details.
A peace delegation made up of Pashtun elders from Pakistan's six other semi-autonomous tribal agencies returned empty handed late Sunday but was scheduled to resume talks Tuesday in Miranshah, North Waziristan's main town.
However, pamphlets distributed there Monday did not bode well for peace.
Entitled “Till Islam Lives in Islamabad” and signed by a group calling itself the Mujahedin-e-Islam (Islamic holy warriors), they threatened that suicide bombs would again bring Pakistani soldiers the “gift of death.”
They warned that suicide attackers “love death more than you love your 5,000-rupee salary, nude pictures of Indian actresses and liquor.”
“We know that you have become America's slave and are serving infidel (non-believer) Musharraf and have become a traitor to your religion for food, clothes and shelter.”
Another 19 rebels were killed in weekend clashes in North Waziristan.
The truce, signed in September, was heavily criticised by Washington and Kabul. Militants tore it up amid complaints about new military checkpoints and a lack of compensation for damage in previous army operations.
Washington has said the truce was a failure that allowed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup across the border from war-torn Afghanistan, and has warned it was considering military strikes against them inside Pakistani territory.
US national intelligence chief Mike McConnell earlier said he believed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was alive and sheltering in the frontier zone.
White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend told CNN: “No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal to deal with the problem of Osama bin Laden and (his deputy Ayman al) Zawahiri and Al-Qaeda.”
Pakistani foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam on Monday called the latest comments from Washington “irresponsible and dangerous.”
“We have stated in the clearest terms that any attack inside our territory would be unacceptable,” she told a weekly media briefing.
“We do not want our efforts to be undermined by any ill-conceived action from any quarter that is inconsistent with the principles of international law and would be deeply resented in the tribal areas and generally in Pakistan.”
