Pakistani security forces have clashed with an al-Qaeda-linked group running a training camp near the Afghan border, and killed at least three suspects, officials say.

Pakistani security officials said at least three suspects were killed in Tuesday's shootout.

Major-General Waheed Arshad, the army spokesman, said that after receiving reports about the training facility in North Waziristan, tribal elders were sent to the area to tell its organisers to close it down, but came under fire, triggering a gun battle.

"Security forces returned the fire and are in the process of clearing the miscreants' training facility," the military said in a statement on Tuesday.

Al-Qaeda hotbeds

Pakistan's tribal areas on the Afghan border are hotbeds of many foreign al-Qaeda members who took refuge there after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

Beginning in 2003, Pakistani security forces launched offensives in North and South Waziristan as part of efforts in the US-led "war against terror".

A senior US official said on Monday that Pakistan had been increasingly active in repelling Taliban and al-Qaeda forces on the Afghan border despite growing unease about Pakistan's commitment to the war on terrorism.

In February, Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, visited Afghanistan and Pakistan and urged Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, to take tougher action against armed groups on his side of the lawless border where US commanders say radical fighters are training.

PHOTO CAPTION

Pakistani soldiers stand alert at an observation post in front of Lwara Fort in the mountainous region of Alwara Mandei, North Waziristan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in February 2007. (AFP)

Al-Jazeera