ISLAMABAD, 7 March 2007 — Seventeen people, including 12 Al-Qaeda-linked Uzbeks, were killed yesterday in a clash with tribesmen in the border region seen as a hotbed of militant support.

Three Pakistani tribesmen and two Afghan refugees were among the dead in the fighting in Azam Warsak, a village in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border, intelligence officials said.

“Both sides used AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles,” said one intelligence official who declined to be identified.

The fighting broke out in the village market after militants tried to assassinate a pro-government tribal elder, Malik Saeedullah Khan, they said. A brother of Khan was killed, one official said.

Hundreds of foreign militants, most of them Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, have been hiding in Waziristan and some other Pakistani tribal areas after fleeing Afghanistan when US-led forces defeated the Taleban in late 2001.

Militants in North and South Waziristan have killed dozens of people, including government officials, tribal elders they accused of supporting the Pakistani government and people accused of spying for US forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

While many people have been assassinated by the militants, the fighting yesterday was the first reported clash between the militants and ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in the area.

The militants opened fire at Khan, the head of a government-backed peace committee, as he passed through the market area. Khan escaped unhurt and later up to 250 tribesmen took to the bazaar and exchanged fire with the militants.

Cheney Didn’t Talk Tough,

Says Musharraf

Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday dismissed American media reports that US Vice President Dick Cheney had talked tough to Pakistan on the issue of terrorism when he visited Islamabad last month.

Western reports say that Cheney threatened Musharraf during their meeting to cut aid to Pakistan if it did not step up efforts to combat Al-Qaeda and Taleban forces in the country’s tribal region.

“Dick Cheney had not given Pakistan any threats,” Musharraf told reporters here. “We are not sitting like scapegoats.”