Thursday, September 21 2006 17:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Pakistani security forces arrested 10 suspected Taliban militants in the North Waziristan tribal region following a US-led counter-insurgency operation in bordering Afghanistan.

Local tribesmen delivered the militants to a joint team of government and tribal figures sent to investigate intrusions by US helicopter gunships into Lawar Mandi area Tuesday, the newspaper Dawn said Thursday, quoting unnamed officials.

The tribesmen were honouring a peace deal signed between tribal elders and the Pakistan government earlier this month which halted military operations against them if they did not assist the Taliban militancy across the border and nor shelter fugitives from there. The agreement, signed after four years of bloody confrontation between the Pakistan army and the fiercely independent tribesmen, had aroused concerns in the US and its allies in the war on terror.

But Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf defended it as the correct strategy to counter and isolate the Taliban. "It has the seeds of success," Musharraf told the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York Wednesday. He urged Afghanistan to emulate the strategy.