'Al-Qaeda hideout' tunnels found

Pakistan says more than 100 suspects have been detained

Pakistan says al-Qaeda suspects surrounded by the army near the Afghan border may have escaped using a tunnel.

A military spokesman said the army had found a number of tunnels, one being two kilometres long, under villages in the South Waziristan tribal area.

Eleven soldiers are reported to have been killed in an attack as they were being dispatched to the area on Monday.

The army operation has been aimed against al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects and tribesmen sheltering them.

After nearly a week of heavy fighting near the town of Wana, there is now a lull while tribal elders try to negotiate an end to the confrontation.

The army is insisting that the surrounded men must surrender.

It is the army's biggest-ever operation in the tribal areas along the Afghan border which have traditionally run their own affairs without outside interference.

'Tunnel between homes'

The army said on Monday that it had located several man-made tunnels that al-Qaeda suspects could have used to escape.

Brigadier Mehmood Shah told reporters that one of them was "a two-kilometre-long tunnel running between the homes of two wanted tribesmen and leading to a stream."

Map of the wider region

The brigadier said the army had temporarily stopped firing at suspect positions while 22 local tribal elders had entered the cordoned off area.

The army has said that about 500 militants are holed up in the area - seen as a safe haven for Islamic militants.

Last week it was reported that there was a "high-value al-Qaeda target" in the area among those surrounded by the army.

Military chiefs are now saying that it is probably not Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahri.

More likely, they say, it would be a senior Chechen or Uzbek militant - because of the large number of Central Asians arrested and radio conversations intercepted in Chechen and Uzbek.

Army fatalities

The army suffered a further setback on Monday with reports that 11 soldiers were "feared dead" after their convoy came under attack.

The soldiers were being sent as reinforcements to the area.

Fifteen soldiers were killed on the first day of the offensive. The bodies of six men killed by the army have been taken to the city of Rawalpindi for DNA analysis.

Military officials said a Pakistani army camp came under fire overnight.

US-led forces are backing the operation involving more than 5,000 Pakistani troops by patrolling the area on the Afghan side of the border.

Pakistani forces have arrested about 100 suspects who they say include al-Qaeda members, renegade tribesman and Uzbek and Chechen militants.

Some of the detainees have been taken to be questioned in the provincial capital, Peshawar, officials said.

Military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP: "They are a mixed bag of locals, Chechens, Uzbeks - there could be Arabs. But since they do not carry any identification on them and there is no-one to identify who is who, this can only be confirmed after interrogations."

'Out of his depth'

In another development, Islamabad on Monday reacted angrily to remarks made by the US ambassador to Afghanistan who said that said that senior members of the Taleban were hiding in safe havens in Pakistan and launching attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

"Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is clearly out of his depth," said foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan, "and he should desist from making such statements that can only cause misunderstandings."

As the latest Pakistani military operation continues, it has emerged that a senior United States army figure, General John Abizaid, has been in Pakistan on an unannounced visit.

General Abizaid is head of the US Central Command. Pakistani officials would not give details of his visit.

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