WANA, June 6: A lashkar will start on Monday a search for remnants of Al Qaeda network straggling in the tribal area of South Waziristan Agency. This was decided on the basis of a breakthrough reached in talks on Sunday between armed volunteers and local tribes over the presence of army troops in Shakai.

Around 4,000 armed tribal volunteers kept waiting for several hours in Shakai area, about 17km west of Wana, as their elders remained busy in negotiations with three tribes. They were demanding that the army should not move into the area and that the search should be a one-time action.

Gul Bahadur, a tribesman who accompanied the lashkar, told Dawn that the tribes in Shakai, an area considered to be sheltering foreign militants, were willing to let the search operation begin but on the condition that it would a one-time move and that army's presence should not become a regular feature in the area.

A tribal elder said that the tribes had offered to be in the forefront of any search operation in Shakai, but demanded that the army which had taken up positions and set up bases elsewhere in the tribal region should not set up camps there.

The lashkar, he said, would launch the search operation from villages in Shakai inhabited by the Spirkai sub-tribe of the Ahmadzai Wazir clan. The lashkar would later move to the area inhabited by the Khuniakhel and Shudiaki sub-clans.

It is a rough mountainous area and local elders believe it would be difficult for the lashkar to look for foreign militants in the area again and again. "Foreign militants might as well have moved from the area to some safe havens.

It is widely known here that the search in Shakai would begin on Monday and I don't think they (militants) would be so foolish as to stick around," said the tribal elder.