Pakistan kills 19 militants, denies Osama bin Laden claim

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani troops killed 19 militants in clashes near the Afghan border, the army said yesterday, as Islamabad denied a US claim that Osama bin Laden was alive in the same lawless area.

Fighting along the rugged frontier has intensified amid a nationwide wave of Islamist bloodshed that has killed more than 200 people, sparked by the army's storming of the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad earlier this month.

An unidentified body and an assault rifle were found on Sunday by workmen repairing the devastated mosque complex, a week-and-a-half after the raid that left more than 100 people dead, officials said.

Six rebels died in a gunbattle Sunday after they ambushed a troop convoy with a roadside bomb in the tribal agency of North Waziristan, wounding seven soldiers, chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.

Just after the blast, militants fired on the troops from nearby hills and the soldiers returned fire, with security forces also using artillery and, local sources said, helicopter gunships.

Four soldiers were hurt in a separate blast, officials said.

Overnight troops also killed 13 pro-Taliban fighters after the rebels attacked several military checkpoints in the lawless region, where authorities were trying to revive a 10-month-old peace deal.

Authorities on Sunday also found the body of a pro-government tribal elder dumped, along with his severed head, by a road in the neighbouring tribal district of South Waziristan, security officials said.

Amid the violence, talks involving elders and religious leaders drawn from Pakistan's seven tribal districts bordering Afghanistan to salvage a collapsed peace accord in North Waziristan ended with no result, officials said.

The deal, signed in September, was heavily criticised by Washington and Kabul. Militants tore it up a week ago amid complaints about new checkpoints in the area and a lack of compensation for damage in previous army operations.

US intelligence chief Mike McConnell said Sunday that he thought the lawless tribal belt was where bin Laden is hiding out, and blamed the government of President Pervez Musharraf for allowing Al-Qaeda to regroup there.

Pakistan quickly denied the claim.

"Our stance is that Osama bin Laden is not present in Pakistan," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told AFP. "If anyone has the information he should give it to us, so that we can apprehend him."

US President George W. Bush in his weekly radio address on Saturday linked the US global campaign against Al-Qaeda to Pakistan's efforts to quell Islamist violence, including the deadly storming of the pro-Taliban mosque.

Bush expressed his full support for embattled President Pervez Musharraf's efforts "to rid all of Pakistan of extremism" including an Al-Qaeda "safe haven" in western tribal areas.

The White House earlier this week refused to rule out strikes by US forces on militants in Pakistan, and would not say if it would seek permission from Musharraf.

Pakistan has said such comments were "irresponsible and dangerous" and on Sunday the army also ruled out the possibility of joint operations to target extremists.

"There will be no joint operations in Pakistani territory. There is no question of it," chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP.