Pakistan tribe says will take on al Qaeda fighters

By Hafiz Wazir

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Members of a Pakistani ethnic Pashtun tribe vowed on Thursday to raise a militia aimed at forcing al Qaeda-linked foreign militants from their lands on the Afghan border.

For several year Pakistani security forces have been trying with little success to rid the border tribal belt of foreign militants, who are blamed for raids on foreign troops in Afghanistan and for attacks inside Pakistan.

Thursday's decision by men from the Wazir tribe came four days after gunmen, believed to be Uzbek militants, attacked two offices of a government-sponsored peace movement in South Waziristan and killed eight members of the tribe.

"A lashkar of 600 people will be organised tomorrow," tribal elder Meetha Khan told a gathering in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. A lashkar is a militia force.

Wazir tribesmen sheltering the foreigners must now give them up, he said.

"The lashkar will give two options to those sheltering the foreigners, either to stop sheltering them and return to their tribe, or face the eviction of their families from the area," Khan said.

Thousands of foreign militants, including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks, fled to Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal lands after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

The militants were given refuge by the Pashtun tribes who live on both sides of the porous border.