Author: AP
Publication: Khaleej Times
Date: May 25, 2004
URL: http://66.234.3.46/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2004/May/subcontinent_May601.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=class=stories
President Pervez Musharraf said
yesterday that a top terror suspect responsible for several attacks in
China has been killed by Pakistani security forces in the northwestern
tribal region.
"He was one of the most wanted terrorists
in China. He was killed here," Gen. Musharraf told a televised gathering
of students in Islamabad.
President Musharraf did not identify
the suspected terrorist or say precisely when or where he was killed.
Pakistan's army killed dozens of
suspected terrorists, including foreigners, in an operation two months
ago in Wana, a district of the South Waziristan tribal region near the
border with Afghanistan.
None of the identities of foreigners
killed in the March operation have been revealed. Forty-eight Pakistani
troops died.
Security forces arrested 163 suspects,
many of them local tribesmen who were subsequently freed. But officials
said that others included Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and ethnic Uighurs from
southwestern China.
Wary of further casualties, the
Pakistani government has since been working through tribal intermediaries
to get low-level Al Qaeda and Taleban militants to accept an amnesty and
lay down arms. In return, they would be allowed to stay in the tribal regions.
No foreigners have accepted the
offer. Gen. Musharraf said yesterday that the Pakistani army remains present
in South Waziristan and warned that the fugitives would be eliminated if
they do not surrender.
"I know that Al Qaeda people are
hiding there," he said. "I am 500 per cent certain."