ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistani soldiers killed up to 90 Islamist militants near the Afghan border Friday, as the chief of the CIA linked the leader of the extremists in the region to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
The fierce clashes were the latest in a series to rock the lawless Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, the stronghold of wanted Islamist warlord Baitullah Mehsud and his Al-Qaeda and Taliban allies.
Militants have stepped up attacks on troops in the region since opposition leader Bhutto was killed last month, underlining US fears Pakistan is spiralling out of control ahead of February 18 elections.
CIA Director Michael Hayden told The Washington Post in an interview published Friday that Al-Qaeda and allies of tribal chief Mehsud were behind her killing at a political rally on December 27.
"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden said, echoing assertions by President Pervez Musharraf's government about Bhutto's death.
The CIA chief was quoted as saying there is a "nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between Al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups."
The rebels have shown their growing strength in the past week, capturing a Pakistani paramilitary fort in the tribal belt and killing seven soldiers on Wednesday, with another 15 troops still missing.
Soldiers on Friday fought off a "large number" of insurgents who surrounded another fort at Ladha in South Waziristan and attacked it with rockets, the military said in a statement.
"Security forces used artillery, mortars and small-arms fire to engage the miscreants. Reportedly, 50-60 miscreants were killed and (the) rest of them dispersed," it said.
There were no casualties among troops, it added.
Separately, in the Chaghmalai area of South Waziristan, militants ambushed a convoy moving from the main town of Wana, prompting a fierce-one hour gunbattle, the statement added.
Between 20 and 30 rebels were killed, while four troops were injured and two army vehicles damaged, it added.
Pakistani helicopter gunships also opened fire on two suspect cars near a third fort in South Waziristan on Thursday, killing a further eight militants, it said.
The growing boldness of the militants in challenging Pakistani troops is set to provoke a bloody showdown in the tribal belt, with pressure on Islamabad to take action against Mehsud.
Musharraf's government issued a purported telephone recording of Mehsud, the day after Bhutto's death, in which he is is said to congratulate one of his followers for her assassination.
But many Pakistanis are sceptical about the tape, and also about the conflicting official accounts of whether she died from a gunshot wound, a suicide blast or a head injury from her car sunroof.
The country has also seen no let-up in a wave of suicide bombings that have killed nearly 900 people in the past year, with an attack on a Shiite mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday leaving 10 people dead.
Echoing Hayden's claims about a "nexus" of extremist groups, Pakistani officials said they believed the Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has close links to both Mehsud and Al-Qaeda, was behind the Peshawar attack.
"The bomber first fired some shots and then blew himself up. The modus operandi is the hallmark of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and it shows they have plans to stoke up sectarian hatred," a senior security official told AFP.
Pakistan is on high alert ahead of the weekend Muslim festival of Ashura, which is often hit by sectarian violence. Ashura is when Shiites commemorate the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson in the seventh century.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has strong links to Osama bin Laden's network and its members have been convicted of involvement in the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl and in several attempts to kill Pervez Musharraf.
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