A senior al-Qaeda leader was injured and on the run in Pakistan, a military spokesman said Saturday as a bloody 12-day offensive to capture foreign Islamic militants and their local supporters appeared to be drawing to a close.
"Tahir Yuldashev is one of the top al-Qaeda leaders and is also head of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan," Major General Shaukat Sultan said. "He has been injured along with his local facilitators in the ongoing military operation near Wana and is hiding somewhere."
Yuldashev is the most wanted man in Uzbekistan and is considered a close confidant of Osama bin Laden. In 1999, he was sentenced to death in his absence for a series of bombing in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
The military operation, the largest of its kind ever carried out in Pakistan, began on March 16 to capture al-Qaeda militants and their local backers in the tribal area of South Waziristan.
"Intelligence sources and other information gathered from those apprehended during operation indicate that over 60 miscreants have been killed and scores of them injured since March 16," a military statement said.
Intelligence officials said Yuldashev had taken refuge in South Waziristan some time after the US-led military campaign ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The military statement claimed the operation had succeeded in destroying a sanctuary for terrorists.
"A hardened den of miscreants has been completely dismantled," it said.
"A variety of explosives, timebomb devices, communication equipment and a wide range of weaponry retrieved from the stronghold, the type of fighting, trenches and tunnels in the area are indications of their involvement in terrorist activities."
Over 160 "miscreants" have been apprehended live so far, the statement said.
"We have achieved our target; we have destroyed and dismantled the terrorists' sanctuary," Sultan said earlier.
Sultan would not declare the operation over, but another senior army official said the operation would be wrapped up by yesterday at the latest.
"We will be winding up the operation today or most probably by Sunday," the official, who asked not to be identified, said.
The unnamed official said the area under cordon had been "almost completely cleared of militants, but the hunt for terrorists will go on." He did not say how many fighters were still believed to be in the area.
Military losses stand at 62 according to security sources, including eight soldiers whose bodies were found on Friday, five days after they were kidnapped when their convoy was ambushed.
Another 12 soldiers and two government officials were still missing, believed to have been taken hostage by the militants.
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