Pakistan strikes militant hideouts

The Pakistani military destroyed three militant hideouts in the semi-autonomous tribal area of South Waziristan along the Afghan border, an official said.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, a military spokesman, said 25 to 30 foreign militants along with their local supporters were killed in the airstrike on militant hideouts in Zamzola in South Waziristan.

Five hideouts used by militants in the restive South Waziristan tribal area were targeted and three were totally destroyed, he said.

But General Sultan said that "no high-value targets were believed to be there," an oblique reference to top al Qaeda leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The air strike took place at 6:55 am today, the military said, following several days of surveillance of the militant camps. An intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that eightbodies were recovered, fAfghans and three locals residents.

The official said that an important local militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, used the hideouts in Zamzola, but that there were no indications that he was present at the time of the airstrikes. No ground troops were used in the attack and only military gunship helicopters took part in the early morning operation. The Pakistani military did not specify how many helicopters were used.

A resident of Zamzola raised the possibility that U.S. drone aircraft helped identify the target in the forested mountains, 40 miles north of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, close to the border with Afghanistan.

"It is a small forest where the bombing took place. We noticed a drone hovering early in the morning and then a few helicopters came and bombed three houses there," Ali Muhammad, a villager, told Reuters.

The semi-autonomous tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan have long been suspected of providing safe haven to al Qaeda and Taliban remnants. Anti-American sentiment runs high in these areas and the writ of law by the federal government has traditionally been weaker here.

Today's airstrike came hours after Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in Kabul for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has been strongly critical of Pakistan for failing to root out militants in the border area.

NYTimes