PESHAWAR, June 24: Paramilitary forces on Tuesday subdued the pro-Afghan tribesmen after intense gunbattle in the Anargi area in the Mohmand tribal region, which left three rebels dead and four others wounded.

“We are now in full control of Anargi. The rebels have fled across the border into Afghanistan,” Col Naveed Sheikh of the Frontier Corps told Dawn on phone from Ghallani, headquarters of the federally-administered Mohmand tribal region, 80 km northwest off here.

The operation, ‘Al Mizan-III,’ was launched at around 3:45am and continued until 6:30am on Tuesday.

“The level of resistance by the rebel tribesmen was very high. They were fighting under a proper command and control (system) and the attacks were fairly coordinated and organised. Our (Pakistan’s) national flag is now flying in Anargi Kandao,” Col Naveed said.

He reiterated the charge that rebels were being aided and assisted by the Afghan militia from across the border.

“We have intercepts of wireless communication between the rebels and the Afghan militia from across the border. They were getting arms and ammunition from there.”

Security officials alleged that militiamen of the Jalalabad Corps commander, Malik Hazrat Ali, were involved in actively fighting with Pakistani forces.

Rebels used assorted weapons from vantage positions on Pakistani troops below. “They had taken up positions on hilltops that was making our task of flushing them out extremely difficult. We were exposed to their gunfire”, the spokesman said.

Pakistani forces, he said, used armoured personnel carriers, heavy artillery pieces, including 12.7mm machine guns, rockets and helicopters in the pre-dawn attack.

“Fighting was intense but we won in the end”, he said.

The military spokesman said doctors in two ambulances from across the border evacuated the dead and wounded before the rebels treated and fled into Afghanistan.

Monday clashes had left a Naik of Swat Scouts dead and a sepoy of the Mohmand Rifles wounded.

Rebels, said to be over 100 in number, left behind their blood-stained uniforms, ammunition, communication system and empty jerricanes, eye witnesses said. ‘There is now no rebel on this side of the border,” Col Naveed declared.

Naveed said that women and children were now returning to their villages. The operation was supervised by Commandant Mohmand Rifle, Col. Iqbal.

Corps Commander Peshawar, Lt Gen Ali Jan Orakzai and Inspector General of the Frontier Corps Maj Gen Hamid Khan later met with Khugakhel tribesmen at a jirga and assured them about providing protection and initiating development schemes.

American officials have said that the Pakistani operation was part of a coordinated campaign to flush out Al-Qaeda and Taliban elements hiding along the border between the two countries.

Pakistan has denied it was a joint military operation and said that it had mounted the operation to extend its control over the hitherto administratively inaccessible parts of Mohmand Agency, bordering Afghanistan and establish its writ on a contested area along the Durand Line that divides the two countries.