Pak pounds militants

Pakistani forces said they were fighting a fierce battle on Friday with 300-400 foreign militants and Pakistani tribal allies after encircli...

Pakistani forces said they were fighting a fierce battle on Friday with 300-400 foreign militants and Pakistani tribal allies after encircling them near the Afghan border.

Troops pounded the besieged militants, who might include Osama bin Laden8217;s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri as well as many other Al Qaeda fighters, with artillery for most of the day while helicopters attacked them from above. 8216;8216;They are surrounded and they are trying to break the cordon and get away,8217;8217; military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan told a news briefing in Islamabad.

He dismissed reports Zawahri had managed to get away. 8216;8216;From the cordon we have put around these places, we are certain nobody would have escaped,8217;8217; he said. Other Pakistani officials denied financial market rumours that bin Laden himself had been captured.

A Taliban spokesman was quoted as demanding that US and Pakistan forces call off the hunt for Taliban and Al Qaeda militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. 8216;8216;We will carry out more attacks against international coalition forces if they continue to chase us,8217;8217; he said in taped comments reported by Al Jazeera TV.

Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, is regarded as the brains of Al Qaeda. He is believed to be one of the key figures behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The fighting, pitting thousands of government troops against several hundred militants, is in the remote, often lawless region of Waziristan.

A government official in the border region who asked not to be named said 15 soldiers had been killed in the fighting since Thursday. 8216;8216;There8217;s ferocious resistance but a house-to-house search has started on the outskirts of Shin Warsak,8217;8217; the official said.

Sixteen soldiers and 24 suspected militants, including some foreigners, were killed on Tuesday, the first day of fighting. There was no word on casualties among the militants on Friday.

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8216;8216;We are closing in on them. Their defence seems to be dying down,8217;8217; said senior security official Brigadier Mehmood Shah. 8216;8216;Either they8217;ve run out of ammunition or they want to surprise us when we get closer,8217;8217; he said.

US-led troops are also striking from the Afghan side in what the Pentagon is calling a 8216;8216;hammer and anvil8217;8217; operation, and Afghanistan has sent extra troops to the border to stop militants crossing over to escape the onslaught.

Hopes of catching a senior Al Qaeda leader have come to nought earlier, but given the ferocity of the present battle, analysts say at the very least some senior militants could be among the defenders.

But an official of Afghanistan8217;s ousted Taliban regime said on Friday he doubted Zawahri, or bin Laden, was there. 8216;8216;According to my information Dr Ayman al-Zawahri is not in that area,8217;8217; a former Taliban defence minister, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, said. 8212;Reuters