Seventeen foreign militants including few females were killed and four injured in an exchange of fire with Pakistani security forces on Saturday night in an area south of Miran Shah in North Wazirastan tribal agency, said amilitary press release issued Sunday.

One Pakistani soldier was also killed in the clash, which lasted for about six hours during the night.

Arms and ammunition including detonators, explosive material, switches, circuit diagrams, other equipment and written instructions to make improvised explosive devices were recovered by the security forces.

Four Kazakhstan passports were also retrieved by the security forces indicating nationality of some of them, the others were also suspected to be foreigners from the same region. Diaries and other hand-written notes, presumably in the Kazakh language, were also recovered.

The security forces cordoned an area south of Miran Shah Saturday night upon receipt of credible information about presence of foreign militants in few isolated compounds.

The troops carried out search of few compounds and found a lot of materials used in terrorist activities.

While this process was on, the militants tried to break the cordon and escape in two vehicles. The security forces challenged them to stop on which the militants resorted to firing including lobbing of grenades.

In response the troops knocked out one vehicle and the second vehicle stopped. Then the inmates of the vehicle were persuaded to surrender.

The process continued for two to three hours when the militants tried to escape. They were again challenged by the troops. In the ensuing gun battle, the troops killed the militants and overpowered few others who were injured.

As many as 16 local facilitators were also apprehended by the security forces.

Saturday's clash took place two days after 24 Taliban fighters were killed in Pakistan's tribal area by the US-led coalition forces.

Pakistani security forces have launched operations in the tribal areas to hunt for al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban remnants since late 2001. Hundreds of foreign militants have been killed while 600 more captured in the operations in the past years.

Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on terror, says that 70,000 troops have been deployed in the tribal areas and 669 check posts have been established to check illegal cross-border movement.

(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2005)