Pakistan declared a new offensive against al-Qaeda-linked fighters on its north-west border on Friday, pounding an al Qaeda training camp and hideouts used by fugitive foreign fighters in a major air and ground campaign.
Thousands of troops backed by Cobra helicopter gun-ships targeted the camp and two hideouts near Shakai Valley in South Waziristan, Military Spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said, killing at least five more militants and raising the death toll from three days of clashes to 58.
"We have retrieved five bodies of militants. Others are lying on the ground," Sultan told a news conference at the Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat informed the Parliament that a new operation had been launched and would last "until objectives are met", state television reported.
Sultan said the security forces had targeted three sites, including a training centre, two al Qaeda safe houses and a compound which al Qaeda financier Abd Al-Hadi Al-Iraq had been visiting.
"At this moment, we have this information that there were about eight to 10 fighters in the compound.... visited by Al Iraqi. The house is on a mountain top with a Nullah (drain) from where they can have a covered passage to come and get out," he said.
Sultan said that the second target was a set of houses, compounds which al-Qaeda foreign fighters used as a transit point. "They (al-Qaeda) come and stay here."
"Another house is a training area, there is a firing range and other training facilities where they (al Qaeda) were training militants for terrorist activities. At this moment, there were about 20 to 30 foreign fighters present in the area."
The training camp lay on the outskirts of Shakai, near district capital Wana less than 30km from the border, where seven weeks ago army commanders and tribal elders hugged each other as they announced a truce and amnesty deal.
Sultan who spoke around 17:30 (1230 GMT) said the fighting was still going on.
"The security forces have struck at these three sets of targets. The fighting is going on almost on all the targets."
The military said that its offer of amnesty, made in the April 24 "Shakai Agreement", had been abused by "foreign elements" who fired on army positions on Wednesday, triggering three days of clashes.
"Following the provocation and terrorist activities of foreign elements in violation of the Shakai Agreement, Pakistani security forces are appropriately responding against the unknown and confirmed hideouts of miscreants," it said in a formal statement on Friday.
The military accused "local facilitators" of abusing efforts to reach a non-military solution through the amnesty deal and said on Wednesday attacks on army posts were an "abuse of the government's sincere offer" of amnesty.
"The government was left with no choice but to respond in order to establish its writ and eliminate these foreign elements," it said.
The fighters "had not only taken the local population hostage but were also a nuisance for the entire area," the military said.
The military said they occupied a tribal residential compound in Shakai, where they used women and children as human shields, during Wednesday's clash.
Rockets rained down on army posts again on Thursday on Wana's western outskirts, but no casualties were reported.
Some 300 to 400 mainly Chechen and Uzbek al-Qaeda-linked fighters are believed to be hiding in the region. Some Arabs and Chinese Uighurs are said to be among them.
The ground and air offensive came a day after a top military commander survived an assassination attempt in Karachi when unidentified gunmen ambushed his convoy. Seven soldiers and three policemen were killed in the attack.
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