Reply #6: Perhaps this is the story

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Pakistan withdraws troops from main town in Al-Qaeda hunt zone
(AFP)

27 November 2004



ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has withdrawn soldiers from the main town in a tribal area near the mountainous Afghan border after months of bloody offensives against Al-Qaeda-linked militants, officials said on Saturday.


Military checkpoints in Wana, capital of troubled South Waziristan district, are being handed over to police after tribesmen pledged their territory would not be used for violence, military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said.

But soldiers are still-hunting insurgents in the rest of the tense region and the military said the scaling-down in Wana was largely a symbolic move to reward one of the area’s two dominant tribes, the Wazir, for their help.

“The Wazir tribesmen have given guarantees that no foreign militants will be given shelter in the area and they will not support any militant activity,” Sultan told AFP.

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