'Al-Qaida number two surrounded'
Pakistani forces have surrounded a “high-value” al Qaida target on the Afghan border after two days of fierce fighting, Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf said today.
Senior Pakistani officials said they believe the target is the terror group’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri.
The revelation came after recent reports that Pakistani and US special forces were closing in on terror chief Osama bin Laden.
Mr Musharraf told CNN in an interview that his forces had surrounded a “high value target”.
Pakistani officials said intelligence indicated al-Zawahri has been cornered in an operation that began on Tuesday in South Waziristan involving hundreds of troops and paramilitary rangers.
“We have been receiving intelligence and information from our agents who are working in the tribal areas that al-Zawahri could be among the people hiding there,” said a military official.
“All of our efforts are to capture him.”
For two days Pakistani forces have pushed their assault on al Qaida and Taliban suspects deeper into a tribal region, using artillery and helicopter gunships in raids on three remote villages near the Afghan border.
The operation follows a clash on Tuesday between security forces and suspected Taliban and al Qaida holdouts in a fortress-like compound in the village of Kaloosha, just miles from the border.
At least 41 people – including 15 troops and 26 militants – died in the raid. Eighteen other suspects were captured.
The latest operation comes after recent revelations that US forces were planning a “Spring offensive” to capture bin Laden.
It was also recently reported that bin Laden narrowly avoided being captured by Pakistani troops, who are working closely with their American allies.
Pakistani troops also arrested 25 people during a raid on the Pakistan side of border last month.
The US and Pakistani governments deny that there are any American special forces troops on the Pakistani side of the border.
