'20 killed in clash near Afghan border'

More than 20 people were killed in a clash between Pakistani forces and heavily armed foreign militants in a mountainous tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said today.

It happened in an area where hundreds of al-Qaida fighters are believed to be hiding, the officials and a tribal elder said in reports from Peshawar.

The bloodshed follows weeks of failed attempts to get the militants in South Waziristan to surrender to authorities by peaceful means after an army counter-terrorism offensive in March that left 120 people dead.

Brigadier Mahmood Shah, chief of security for Pakistan’s tribal regions, said foreigners and local tribesmen had been holed up in four fortress-like houses, about 25 miles from the Afghan frontier.

He said they traded fire with paramilitary and army soldiers who had surrounded the area.

He said about 20 foreign militants and one paramilitary soldier had been killed. Three civilians died in the crossfire.

“The intermittent shooting continued until 4:30pm and then finally it stopped. According to our information up to 20 foreigners have been killed. We have bodies of several of them. One injured is also with us,” Shah told a television network.

He said seven of the dead had already been buried, but others were lying ravines and could not be recovered.