Pakistan is awaiting 'authentic information' of senior al-Qaeda death [AFP]

The security officials were killed in retaliation for the torture of Taliban prisoners in custody, Taliban officials said on Tuesday.

They said they had encircled the Swat valley police station and that the police were hostages and had given up their weapons.

The dead officers were returning to Mingora, the main town of Swat, when gunmen sprayed their vehicle with bullets late on Monday, killing them on the spot.
  
A spokesman for Maulana Fazlullah, a cleric who is leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, accepted responsibility.
  
"We have killed them because people from the security agencies arrest our people and brutally torture them," the spokesman, Muslim Khan, told Reuters news agency.
   
Government officials confirmed the death of the three men, but refused to say which security agency they belonged to.

Meanwhile, security officials in Pakistan were seeking confirmation on Tuesday that a top al-Qaeda expert on chemical and biological weapons had been killed in a  suspected US missile strike.

The news came as Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, held his first talks with George W Bush, the US president, centred on how to tackle Islamic fighters based in the lawless tribal zones.

Gilani, whose new government has been facing intense US pressure to crack down on the fighters, urged the United States not to act "unilaterally" against the Taliban in his country.

No confirmation

There was no immediate confirmation from Washington or the US-led coalition in Afghanistan about Monday's strike in the South Waziristan tribal district, which a senior Pakistani official said was thought to have killed Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar.

The Egyptian fighter - who is also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri - had a $5m bounty on his head and is alleged to have trained hundreds of extremists at camps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

"We believe he was killed in this strike," a senior Pakistan intelligence official based in the northwest city of Peshawar told AFP news agency under cover of anonymity. 

"It was his hideout, and information that has been shared with us says he was targeted in this strike."

Officials earlier said three Arab fighters and three Pakistani youths were killed when missiles fired from a suspected US drone hit a house attached to a village mosque.

Umar's wife and children were believed to have been injured in the attack, Pakistani officials said.

Residents said the victims of the strike were hastily buried in the hours after the attack.

Pakistan's military said it was still seeking confirmation, as claims that Umar was killed in another air strike in the Bajaur  tribal region in January 2006 turned out to be untrue.

Recommend this article...

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: