Ultimatum delivered to terrorists encircled in Pakistan

State radio of Pakistan announced on Tuesday that on the day before the elders of the Wazir tribal group had handed the authorities' proposal of capitulation to the militants encircled near Wana - the main city of the South Waziristan autonomous region in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan with the mainly Pashtoon population.

The authorities demand that all foreign terrorists and mercenaries be given up, that information be provided on the local inhabitants who gave shelter to them, and that 14 border guards and officials, captured at the beginning of last week, be released.

As it is expected, a reply of the Zalikhel Pashtoon tribe whose members, according to head of Pakistan's military information service Shaukat Sultan, secrete foreigners may be received on Tuesday.

According to a representative of the authorities - Brigadier-General Mahmoud-Khan, about 200 militants were captured during the operation. Their list includes, along with the local "Pakistani" Pashtoons, also Chechens, Uzbeks, "Afghan" Pashtoons (most of Pashtoons, up to 25 million people, live in Pakistan), and Arabs.

The General also said that on the day before field engineers found a tunnel leading to the encircled area. The entrance of the tunnel was in the house of a local resident suspected of aiding and abetting the terrorists. According to the General, part of militants could come out of the encircled area by this tunnel on the first day of the army operation.