Pak declares truce with militants

Shah said the elders would demand that any captured soldiers be released and the militants surrender. ‘‘The local tribesmen, who accused of harbouring foreign militants must be handed over to the government immediately. And all foreign militants must surrender, there is no other option.’’

Shah said there was a temporary ceasefire in operation, with no helicopter gunships or heavy artillery being used. ‘‘Until they fire on us we will not fire on them,’’ he said.

The Army has declined to give casualty figures although local officials have said around 30 soldiers and almost as many militants may have been killed since Tuesday.

Officials said 13 civilians were killed on Saturday when their vehicles were fired on by helicopter gunships, and two Chechen militants were killed on Sunday after trying to break through an Army cordon.

The battle, involving 5,000 troops, is the biggest Pakistan has ever waged in its semi-autonomous tribal border lands and is part of a major push to sweep foreign militants from the region and catch Osama bin Laden.

But anger is growing in the fiercely independent tribal region of South Waziristan, and 7,000 protesters gathered at a rally in one village on Sunday to demand troops be withdrawn.

In Islamabad, 70 Muslim clerics denounced the raid as unIslamic and issued a decree saying government soldiers killed in the operation had died as ‘‘infidels’’.

In Afghanistan, US troops have also stepped up their hunt in what they describe as a Hammer and Anvil operation with Pakistan. A senior US official said he was pleased with Pakistan’s efforts ‘‘to run those terrorist rascals out of their territory and into Afghanistan’’.

‘‘We have believed for a long time that we really need to work along the border,’’ acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee said on a visit to Afghanistan.

More than 100 suspected militants have been captured in South Waziristan since Tuesday and the Army has thrown up a 60 km cordon to box in rebels still at large. Pakistani commanders say they suspect a Uzbek or Chechen militant leader is among those surrounded in a series of well-established and well-defended mud-walled compounds.

Officials said there was a possibility they included Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which wants to bring down the government of Islam Karimov and replace it with an Islamic state. But after days of bombardment, anger has grown among South Waziristan’s heavily armed tribesmen, who have sheltered foreign Muslim fighters for years and whose support would be invaluable in the hunt for militants. —(Reuters)