Pakistan President: 300 Militants Killed

Tribesmen have killed about 300 foreign militants during a weeks-long offensive in South Waziristan, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf claimed Thursday, acknowledging for the first time that they received military support.

The fighting that began last month in the lawless tribal region near the Afghan border has targeted mainly Uzbek militants with links to al Qaeda who have sheltered there since escaping the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

The government says the bloodshed is evidence that doubts about its commitment to fighting terrorism and extremism are misplaced.

"The people of South Waziristan now have risen against the foreigners," Musharraf said in a speech at a military conference in Islamabad. "They have killed about 300 of them, and they got support from the Pakistan army. They asked for support."

"We are demanding the same in North Waziristan, and there are indications the same may happen there also," he said.

The toll given by Musharraf is far higher than figures given by Pakistani army officials to journalists on a trip to South Waziristan on Wednesday. They said that between 150 and 230 militants had died in the fighting, and about 40 tribesmen.

Poor security in the region has scared off reporters, and there are minimal telephone links, making it virtually impossible to verify the tally offered by officials.

Army officials had previously denied any direct involvement in the fighting — saying the campaign was the work of tribesmen angered by the killings and other criminal acts of the Uzbeks.

The offensive has improved security around the main town in South Waziristan, Wana, but concerns remain that it could empower local pro-Taliban militants in the tribal militia who support the jihad, or holy war, against NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan

Addressing an audience including senior military officers from the United States, Musharraf did not elaborate on the fighting in South Waziristan nor his forces' involvement. But he provided a robust defense of Pakistan's approach to combating terrorists and extremists.

Pakistan had detained 700 al Qaeda "kingpins" who fled to Pakistan from Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion, and has lost 500 soldiers in operations against militants in remote valleys near the border, he said.

The latest fighting in Waziristan showed that the government's decision last year to scale back those operations and charge tribal leaders with countering militancy in return for development aid was correct, he said.

He acknowledged that Taliban militants, who were backed by Islamabad until 2001, were crossing into Pakistan to indoctrinate and recruit fighters for raids in Afghanistan and that his forces needed to do more to seal the border.

But he reiterated his argument that the Taliban were sustained mainly by popular support inside Afghanistan, where promises of higher living standards under U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai have failed to materialize.

In an apparent reference to suggestions from Karzai and some analysts that elements in Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency still back the Taliban, he said "there must be trust" within the U.S.-led coalition.

"If there is no trust, no commitment, then I think the coalition is meaningless. It is meaningless if we are not all on board, if we are bluffing each other," he said. "If Pakistan is bluffing, and if I am bluffing and ISI is bluffing, I think we should be out of the coalition."