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MIRANSHAH, Pakistan - Pakistani warplanes pounded militant positions in North Waziristan overnight, as fighting raged for a fourth day in a tribal region known as an al Qaeda and Taleban stronghold, an army spokesman said.
There has been intense fighting since Saturday night local time around the town of Mir Ali, and nearly 200 people had been killed before Tuesday's air strike.
"Aircraft were used to attack militants positions near Mir Ali this afternoon," military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.
Thousands of families were fleeing the town of 50,000 and outlying villages, making their way on foot, in tractor trailers and cars.
Arshad had no details of casualties from Tuesday's air strike, though residents and a security official in North Waziristan put the number of people killed at close to 50.
Air strikes earlier destroyed most houses around Essori, a village near Mir Ali where most of the fighting was concentrated.
"We don't have any place to live," said villager Mohammad Anwar. "We have sent our children to other areas because children are scared that the bombing could start again."
The military had put the death toll from the three days of fighting at 150 militants, and 45 soldiers.
Whereas the army has often used missile-firing helicopter gunships to attack militant targets in the past, the use of warplanes in the last few days was a new development.
The latest clashes began after militants ambushed a military convoy near Mir Ali, and casualties mounted as the army struck back using ground troops, artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.
Sher Khan, a resident of Mir Ali, reckoned nearly 90 per cent of families in the town had fled, leaving behind a few menfolk to guard their belongings.
"The main bazaar of Mir Ali is sealed by the army," Khan said. "All shops are closed. We have nothing to eat. That's why I have sent my family to Bannu."
Lying at the gateway to Waziristan, the North West Frontier town of Bannu has suffered plenty of militancy itself.
In neighbouring South Waziristan militants have been holding about 225 soldiers since the end of August.
Violence has surged in the lawless Waziristan region since militants scrapped a peace deal with authorities in July.
Attacks by suicide bombers have become commonplace, especially after the army stormed a mosque in Islamabad in July to crush an armed student movement.
A bomb wounded 17 people in a bazaar in Peshawar, the capital of the volatile North West Frontier Province, on Tuesday.
Unable to defeat the militants in Waziristan, having lost more than 1,000 men in three years, the Pakistan army had tried contain the problem by seeking a ceasefire last year.
Critics, including US generals, said the strategy effectively created a safe haven for the Taleban and al Qaeda.
There have been growing fears in the West that al Qaeda had regrouped in Waziristan and was organising conspiracies in Western countries from there.
The militants had originally fled to the region after US-led forces drove them out of Afghanistan in late 2001.
US ally President Pervez Musharraf swept a vote by parliamentarians on Saturday, but he will have to wait until October 17 at least to hear whether the Supreme Court rules whether he was eligible to stand for re-election while still army chief.
Opposition among many Pakistanis, mainly in the conservative northwest, to General Musharraf's support for US policy in the region has increased, analysts say.
- REUTERS
