ISLAMABAD, March 17: Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said here on Wednesday that no military personnel was among those who died in the 'fresh' operation in Wana.

The operation was conducted by paramilitary troops and only Frontier Corps personnel and a number of foreign militants were killed. He rejected reports that people of Wana were fleeing their homes, and said that the place where the operation was launched on Tuesday was 10 to 12 kilometres from Wana.

The minister said the local population should not feel scared as the operation was directed only against terrorists. Secretary Interior Tasneem Noorani said the death toll in Wana operation had increased to 39 - 15 Frontier Corps personnel and 24 tribesman.

Responding to a question about the latest situation in Wana, he said: "The situation is quiet there". The secretary interior said he had no idea how many FC men had been made hostage by the tribesmen and what efforts had so far been made for their release.

Interior Minister Faisal Hayat said that Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was not hiding in Pakistan as the military had "virtually sealed the border" with Afghanistan.

He said: "We do not believe he's in Pakistan, because the scale of the operations which have been initiated and conducted over the past two years in that area, certainly he would have been apprehended if he had been hiding there.

"The reason he could not be in Pakistan is because we have already deployed 70,000 paramilitary forces for patrolling the border. We have virtually sealed the border.

The operations which are going on in Wana and South Waziristan are the outcome of an apprehension that some of the elements connected to the Al Qaeda network's hierarchy might be hiding in these areas.

That is the reason why we are going ahead with these operations but certainly that doesn't mean that Osama Bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan," he said. Talking about the attack on a religious procession in Quetta in which more than 40 people were killed on the Ashura day, the minister said: "It was not sectarian clash but it has been given a sectarian colour.

We believe it's a terrorist attack. It may have certain sectarian connotations and certain sectarian background but in fact it's a terrorist incident. It is the work of terrorists."