Security forces raided a hideout near North Waziristan's capital town of Miranshah and "killed four foreign miscreants who were hiding there," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said.

"We had received confirmed information that a few miscreants were present in a hideout in an area in North Waziristan," Sultan told AFP.

"The security forces conducted a raid early this morning and successfully eliminated the hideout."

He said "two miscreants have been apprehended alive, one is a foreigner."

The bodies of four foreigners were retrieved, he said adding that security forces captured a large quantity of arms and ammunition including rocket launchers, light machine guns and Kalashnikov assault rifles.

"We think there would be a few more dead whose bodies could not be recovered," the spokesman said.

Sultan said the nationalities of the foreigners would be given once investigations were over.

He said the security forces suffered no casualties.

Sultan said the raid was part of an operation continuing in the northwestern tribal region since June to hunt down Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Pakistani troops hunting foreign Al-Qaeda-linked militants launched a five-day operation in neighbouring South Waziristan in June. The operation left 65 militants and 18 soldiers dead.

Monday's strike near Miranshah came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad for talks with his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf on bilateral matters including eradicating Al-Qaeda-linked militants operating along their common border.

Musharraf earlier this year estimated 500 to 600 foreign fighters were hiding in the remote tribal belt, home to fiercely independent conservative Pashtun tribes known to have sympathies with the ousted Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives.

Pakistani authorities have been pressing the tribes to expel hundreds of Chechen and Uzbek fighters who sneaked into the region after the US-led offensive ousted the hardline Taliban regime in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

Monday's operation came amid reports that Afghan army and US-led coalition troops launched an operation against suspected Taliban fighters in troubled Khost province facing North Waziristan.

Local officials and residents in the area said hundreds of Pakistani troops took up positions in two remote villages to prevent entry of suspects fleeing the Afghan operation.

However General Sultan said the raid was not linked to the US-led offensive on the Afghan side.

"We have 70,000 troops in area along the Afghanistan border and there is no need for further deployment," he added.

Pakistani forces have been stepping operations against suspected Al-Qaeda sanctuaries since early this year.

They have also arrested more than 60 Al-Qaeda suspects in urban centres since last month, including Al-Qaeda's Pakistani computer whizz Naeem Noor Khan and Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Gailani, a suspect in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa.

WAR.WIRE