Pakistan offers tribes help, warns on militants

ISLAMABAD, Mar 9 (Reuters) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has promised tribal areas along the Afghan border special help with development but said foreign Islamic militants had to be expelled, state-run media reported.

The semi-autonomous tribal lands are Pakistan's front line in its war on terrorism and fighting between security forces and militants there has killed more than 120 people since Saturday.

President Musharraf yesterday met a delegation of tribal elders and held out the prospect of development of their long-neglected areas, but said action against militants would go on, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency said.

''The government would make available additional funds to set the tribal areas on the track of fast-paced development and bring them on a par with rest of the country,'' the news agency quoted Musharraf as telling the leaders.

''The president said that there is an elaborate reconstruction and development plan for the tribal region that envisages boosting agriculture, irrigation, livestock and industry.'' Musharraf also proposed so-called reconstruction opportunity zones where companies would be exempt from export duty, it said.

The proposals came after US President George W Bush visited Pakistan last week and spoke of such zones in remote areas where manufactured goods would get duty-free US access.

Bush said these would help defeat terrorism.

Musharraf stressed that foreign militants would have to be flushed out and local people helping them dealt with sternly, APP quoted the governor of North West Frontier Province, Khalilur Rehman, who attended the talks, as saying.

Many al Qaeda militants fled to the rugged tribal areas after US and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan 2001.

They were given refuge by sympathisers among ethnic Pashtun clans and since 2004 hundreds of people have died in attempts by Pakistani security forces to dislodge them.

The tribal areas cover about 27,220 square km of mountainous territory and are home to about six million people, most of them Pashtuns. Few of Pakistan's federal laws apply and outside interference is deeply resented.

Many tribesmen sympathise with the Taliban and al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding in the region.

Security forces and militants traded sporadic fire around Miranshah today, the main town in North Waziristan, for a sixth day, a political official said.

Two paramilitary troops were killed in an attack on their checkpost but there was no information about militant casualties, said an intelligence officer who declined to be identified.

REUTERS PR BS1535