War drums echo in Pakistan tribal assault

WANA, PAKISTAN: Long-haired Pakistani tribesmen beat war drums for the first time in three years on Wednesday as 11 people died in the heaviest battles yet with foreign Al-Qaeda rebels, residents said.

Around 1,000 tribesmen armed with rockets, mortars and machineguns answered a call to mount a final push against Uzbek, Chechen and Arab bunkers in the South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan, they said.

Officials say more than 200 people have died during two weeks of vicious battles between the foreign rebels and the formerly pro-Taliban tribes who have come over to the government side.

Tribesmen stormed a bunker manned by foreign militants early on Wednesday and killed 11 Uzbeks and captured another 14, residents said, citing the tribal forces.

"Soon after morning prayers there was a heavy sound of war drums and tribesmen were seen leaving in different directions amid shouts of 'Allahu Akhbar' (God is Greatest) and 'Victory, victory, victory'," Malik Sangeen Khan, a resident of the region's main town of Wana, said.

"Since this morning there have been massive sounds of rockets and gunfire. It is louder even than the Pakistani military operations here in 2004."

The war drums are made from animal hide stretched over wooden frames.

Ethnic Pashtuns in the semi-autonomous tribal zone play different drumbeats to call tribesmen to councils or celebrations, but residents said this was the first time the war song has rung out since 2004.

Able-bodied males who refuse to answer the call are fined heavily and their houses are burned down or demolished.

Tribesmen also stationed children at local checkpoints to ensure that people wearing all-covering burqas were women and not foreign militants in disguise trying to flee the area, residents said.

Men are not allowed to look under burqas in the conservative region.

Security officials said several groups of tribesmen each made up of around 70 to 100 people headed out of Wana early on Wednesday morning to assault militant positions to the west and south, within a 12 kilometre (eight mile) radius.

"Many of the Uzbeks have been flushed out and they are in a few bunkers only now. Their leader Tahir Yuldashev has probably escaped, but we don't know where," a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

Yuldashev is wanted in his homeland for leading a militant organisation called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Security officials describe him as having been a close confidant of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Thousands of foreign militants were given shelter by Pakistani tribesmen after fleeing Afghanistan when US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001, but the two sides have now fallen out violently.

The government of President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, says the tribal actions vindicate a controversial peace deal that Islamabad signed with tribesmen in South Waziristan in 2005, which led to a military pull-out.