Pro-Taliban Pakistani tribesman cornered, killed

ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Reuters) A leading pro-Taliban tribesman was killed after being surrounded by Pakistani forces near the Afghan border, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said today.

Abudullah Mehsud was released from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. Later that year he kidnapped two Chinese engineers working in South Waziristan, a region known as a hotbed of support for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

''He was killed in a house in Zhob, where he was staying with three comrades,'' the Interior Ministry spokesman said, referring to a district of southwest Baluchistan province neighbouring Waziristan.

According to officials in Baluchistan, Mehsud blew himself up to avoid arrest, and his three comrades were captured. He was second in command of a Pakistani Taliban group headed by Baitullah Mehsud. Their followers often sneaked across the border to attack US, NATO and Afghan forces.

REUTERS SV DS1223