PESHAWAR, June 14: The Pakistan army said on Monday it had completed its operation in Shakai tribal region and foreign militants there had either been killed or flushed out from the area.

"The operation against foreign militants has been completed. Our forces are now in total control of the area. Foreign militants there have either been killed or dispersed," Director-General of Inter Services Public Relations, Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan told Dawn.

He, however, said he did not know where the militants might have gone after retreating from Shakai. "I don't know they might have gone somewhere else." Local residents said the militants might have escaped either to Kaniguram or Makin to the north of Shakai. The assertion appears to be corroborated by the relatively light resistance towards the end of the military operation.

But a senior official in Peshawar said that the security forces would continue to chase foreign militants. "We are into another phase of the operation. It is not going to be left like that," the official said."The main thing is that there are no more casualties," he said. The official acknowledged that the forces were rounding up suspected militants, but declined to give any figure.

The ISPR spokesperson added that the security forces had targeted the militants' hideouts and totally destroyed them. He said that 20 militants had been killed in the three days of military operation in Shakai, about 17kms to the west of South Waziristan's regional headquarters, Wana.

He put the casualty on the military side at two. Gen Shaukat Sultan denied that the security forces had made any arrests during the operation that was launched on June 11. "There have been no arrests," he said.

Fighter jets and helicopters pounded suspected hideouts including a training camp and the abode of Qari Tahir Yuldashev, said to be the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who had escaped a similar operation in Kalosha in March this year.

Government believes that Tahir is among the hundreds of foreign militants, mostly Uzbeks, Chechens and a relatively small number of Arabs and Uighir Chinese Muslims from Xinkiang who are hiding in the region.

Our Correspondent from Wana adds: Local population began returning to Shakai after the military started pulling out of the embattled area on Sunday. Eyewitnesses said that troops were returning to the adjoining Tiaraz tehsil.

A local cleric asked residents to help recover the dead and wounded from the adjoining Mandata village which had been severely pounded during the operation. They said seven houses had been destroyed. Rescue workers recovered four bodies from the debris, two of them women.

One of the bodies was of Eidak Khan, a tribal accused of harbouring foreign militants. The situation was relatively quiet elsewhere as tribesmen have formed lashkars to ward against any foreign or local militants using their territory for attacks on security forces.