Pakistan army frees 35 tribals to shore up truce

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, June 30 (Reuters) The Pakistan army has released 35 tribesmen following a similar move by civil authorities to shore up a ceasefire by pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan, a tribal chief said today.

The release of detainees was one of the demands made by the militants in the region bordering Afghanistan when they called a month-long ceasefire to allow tribal elders to begin talks with the government to end months of bloody clashes.

''The men were in army custody and released on Thursday evening,'' Malik Nasrullah Khan, a prominent chieftain in the semi-autonomous region, told Reuters.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Khan's account appeared correct.

The political administration released 50 tribesmen yesterday.

The peace overtures in Waziristan come at the height of a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, where over 1,100 people have been killed since the start of the year, and NATO-peacekeepers are set to deploy thousands more troops over the coming weeks.

Pakistan's attempted reconciliation in an area infested with militant groups also follows on hard on the heels of a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and could raise US concerns that the government is softening its stance.

''The ceasefire has started yielding positive results and people have started returning to normal life after a tense period,'' said Iqbal Khattak, the region's deputy administrator.

More shops were reopening and scores of confiscated vehicles had been returned to their owners.

Pakistani forces have killed more than 300 militants, including 75 foreigners, in the area since mid 2005, when they switched their hunt for al Qaeda from neighbouring South Waziristan on the Afghan border.

Pakistan has some 80,000 regular army troops on the frontier with Afghanistan, most of them deployed in North and South Waziristan where al Qaeda-linked militants have been operating alongside Taliban and tribal sympathisers.

But there has been growing unease that military operations were storing up even worse problems for the future, and analysts have argued for the government to seek a political settlement.

In neighbouring South Waziristan, where pro-Taliban tribals have been in the ascendancy since the army ended operations there last year, unknown gunmen today killed a religious cleric and his son.

REUTERS SHB BD1436