Nearly 50 people have been killed in two days of fighting between the al-Qaeda-linked militants and Pakistani tribesmen, Pakistani government officials said today.
A battle between foreign militants, most of them Uzbeks, and ethnic Pashtun tribesmen erupted in the remote area near the Afghan border on March 6th.
It followed government efforts to convince the tribesmen to help keep order and stop militant raids into Afghanistan.
The latest fighting broke out yesterday in Shin Warsak village, seven kilometres (four miles) west of Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan region. Thirty-five Uzbek militants and 12 tribal combatants were killed, a government official said.
Hundreds of foreign militants - including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs - fled to the semi-autonomous tribal lands on the Pakistani side of the border after US-led forces defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
Most Pashtun tribesmen, who inhabit both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border, gave the militants refuge despite government efforts to clear the foreigners out.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding out somewhere in the rugged belt of mountains and deserts along the border.