Taliban commanders tried on Thursday to negotiate an end to four days of battles between tribesmen and foreign al Qaeda militants that have left at least 120 dead, officials said. Army helicopter gunships hovered over the rugged South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan but did not intervene.
As the tribes and their Uzbek opponents exchanged sporadic heavy weapons fire, witnesses said. Four Uzbeks and two local supporters were killed on Thursday when tribesmen fired at their pickup truck in a village near the regional capital Wana, tribal sources told AFP.
They were buried together in a grave. However, intelligence officials said that the "jirga" or tribal council overseeing the negotiations includes figures wanted by the government, notably Baitullah Mahsud, a Taliban chief blamed for a string of suicide bombings in Pakistan.
Another member of the council is Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former minister in Afghanistan's 1996-2001 Taliban regime, they said. Officials said they were unable to confirm local media reports that Mullah Dadullah, a top Afghan Taliban commander behind the recent kidnapping of an Italian journalists, was also involved.
"Top Taliban commanders have assembled in Wana to negotiate a cease-fire between Uzbeks and local Taliban backed by the government," a local security source told AFP, adding that the tribesmen wanted the foreigners to surrender first. "There is still a tense stand-off between the rival factions with occasional firing."