Pakistan forces kill up to 30 militants in tribal area

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, March 1 (Reuters) - Pakistani helicopter gunships and ground forces attacked a militant hideout near the Afghan border on Wednesday killing up to 30 people, according to a senior official in the North Waziristan tribal region.

Sayed Zaheerul Islam, the political agent and top government administrator in North Waziristan, said between 25 and 30 foreign fighters and tribal militants had been killed and more wounded.

A witness said he saw helicopters attack village houses where women and children lived.

The attack came shortly after 7 a.m. (0200 GMT), and just days before U.S. President George W. Bush is due to arrive in Pakistan on a trip that will also take him to India.

Islam said the helicopter gunships struck first and ground troops then closed in on the camp in the mountains just a couple of kilometres from the Afghan border.

The firing had died down and security forces were mopping up and taking care of casualties, Islam said.

"It was a camp of foreign miscreants," Islam said. "Bodies and wounded are being airlifted."

The army had acted on intelligence received from the Afghan side of the border that a party of militants had returned to Pakistani territory from the Afghan province of Khost, according to the official.

He said the militants had pitched tents at Danda Saidgai, about 15 km (10 miles) north of Miranshah, the main town in the region.

An ammunition dump at the base was also hit and explosions could be heard in Miranshah.

Nek Amal Khan, a tribal elder from the area, said he and two companions were driving to the town early in the morning when a helicopter strafed their van.

He said they jumped out and lay on the ground to play dead, when they saw eight more helicopters fire on the house of a local Muslim cleric, Mullah Noor Peo Khan and his family, and other nearby houses.

"Then all the troops disembarked from the helicopters and surrounded the village," the tribal elder said, after bringing his two wounded companions to a hospital in Miranshah.

Khan did know how many people had been killed, or whether other places outside the village had been targeted as well.

Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan confirmed that a raid had taken place on a militant hideout in Waziristan, but he did not have any information on casualties.

Shaukat, speaking on Geo television channel, said there were reports that there were local and foreign fighters present.

U.S. and Afghan forces in Khost and other provinces along the border are frequently harried by Taliban insurgents, Central Asian Islamist militants and remnants of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Pakistan comes under frequent pressure to act more forcibly against the fighters, although it has deployed around 80,000 troops in border areas.

Bush's visit is seen by analysts as a gesture of support for President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in Washington's war on terrorism.

Musharraf's domestic critics frequently rail against the conduct of the war on terrorism, as Pakistanis are being killed, the Pashtun tribes alienated and Pakistan's own territory sometimes violated by U.S. forces.

A U.S. airstrike in January in the Bajaur tribal agency killed 18 people, raising tribal hackles, although Musharraf later said he believed some foreign militants were among those killed.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding either in the tribal belt straddling the border or in Pakistan's mountainous North West Frontier Province.