Troops recovered a spy unmanned drone plane and arrested 21 militants, some of them âimportantâ Al-Qaeda operatives, in a raid on suspected militant hideouts in the tribal areas near Afghanistan, sources said yesterday. Militants used the Chinese-made vehicle to spy on security forces in the rugged area, where Pakistani soldiers have battled militants for more than a year, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain told reporters. The find in North Waziristan, believed to be the first of its kind in Pakistan, came as President Pervez Musharraf unveiled plans to build a fence along part of the border with Afghanistan to curb the movement of militants. âThe busting of this stronghold has broken the back of Al-Qaeda in the tribal area,â Hussain, who commands troops in northwestern Pakistan, told reporters in Peshawar. âIt is the biggest-ever operation, which is still going on in North Waziristan,â Hussain said.The latest operation came in the same area where suspected militants Monday slit the throats of three people and threw their bodies in a drain in a village east of Miran Shah, on suspicion that they were spies. According to residents and officials, a note pinned on one of the bodies read, âAnybody who works as a spy for America will have to face the same fate.â
The 21 suspects detained in Mondayâs raid on a compound and religious school near the regionâs main town of Miranshah included âimportantâ militants and some were foreigners, Hussain said. He did not give their nationalities. âThe terrorists used the RPV (remotely-piloted vehicle) to check the position of security forces and attack them,â the general said, adding that the drone was capable of carrying weapons. The vehicle was shown to the media along with audio and video CDs about the anti-Soviet âjihadâ, or holy war, in Afghanistan, motivational songs and a number of maps, mostly in Russian. A military officer from the armyâs Signal Corps said the vehicle had a sophisticated, wide-angle camera to take pictures of targets on the ground, while Hussain said they had seized a CD which pinpointed Pakistani troops. Security forces also found a âsuicide jacketâ and Jordanian, Afghan and Pakistani passports along with Al-Qaeda training material from the compound, Hussain said.
Additionally they uncovered a cache of weapons including 17 machine guns, 29 rockets, 51 grenades, eight improvised bombs and 10 land mines, he added. Around 4,000 troops took part in the operation, which included raids on two other sites. âThis madrassa (religious school) was an Al-Qaeda and Taleban stronghold and operational center which we have secured now,â Hussain said. The buildings are owned by relatives of former Taleban minister Jalaluddin Haqqani. He is still on the run.