PESHAWAR, March 21: Fighting between tribespeople and Uzbek militants in the restive South Waziristan tribal region escalated on Wednesday, raising the total death toll to 110, government and security officials said. Most of the dead were of central Asian origin.

“There was a brief lull last night but things escalated this morning and there was some heavy fighting. Most of the casualties occurred in the morning,” a senior security official said.

After the fierce fighting, the combatants reached a temporary truce to retrieve bodies for burial, the security official told Dawn late at night. He said the truce between tribespeople and local militants was for a few hours.

“They have placed a theega,” he said, while referring to truce called theega in tribal parlance. Theega in Pashto means a rock, implying a truce reached between warring sides.The official put the Uzbek death toll from overnight and Wednesday morning fighting at 35 and tribespeople and local militants supporting the drive to oust foreign fighters from South Waziristan’s regional headquarters, Wana, at 15.

This would put the overall casualty figure on the Uzbek side at 79 and local tribespeople and their militant supporters at 31, since the fighting began on Monday.

The administration in South Waziristan confirmed the figure but said they expected the casualty figure on the Uzbek side to rise further due to continuing fighting.

“There is fighting going on and bodies are lying around. There is no way to retrieve the bodies”, said one administration official.

Government and security officials said both sides were using heavy weapons and pounding each other’s positions with mortars and rockets.

“The Uzbeks are well dug-in. They are die-hard fighters. Their backs are any way pushed against the wall. There is no fall back”, said the senior official, requesting not to be named.

He said Uzbeks in neighbouring North Waziristan were trying to come to Wana and support their brethren but authorities were confident that they could stop them from coming into the region.

Sources said militant commander Maulavi Nazir, who is siding with his people against foreign fighters, had taken 61 Uzbeks hostages.

Officials said tribespeople, aided by local militants, raided a madressah in Kaloosha in the Wana region and rescued six people – two Afghans from the Kharotay tribe and four local tribesmen.

It was there where the Uzbeks sustained most of their Wednesday casualties, the sources said.

Also, they said, Uzbekistan Islamic Movement leader Qari Tahir Yaldashev, whose whereabouts were hitherto not known, managed to escape the tribal raid on the madressah during the brief lull in fighting on Tuesday night.

Conservative official estimates put the total number of IMU-linked fighters at over one thousand; most of them had escaped over into Pakistan’s lawless tribal region from the US-led Operation Anaconda in 2001.

“He was nearly caught”, said the senior official, who thought the IMU leader might now have escaped to Mirali in the neighbouring North Waziristan tribal region. “He is desperately running around to muster support in Mirali.”

There was no independent confirmation of the happenings and casualties in the restive tribal region straddling Afghanistan.

All telecommunication access to South Waziristan broke down last December when militants took away equipment from the main telephone exchange. Pakistan Telecommunication says it cannot foot the bill worth Rs14 million to make up for the loss and replace the equipment in the absence of security guarantees against any future attack.

Officials said efforts by Taliban leaders to broker a ceasefire failed last night. A tribal parliamentarian from South Waziristan, Maulana Mirajuddin, and other elders also went to Wana on Wednesday to make another bid for cessation of hostilities, but they failed to meet any of the militant commanders battling the Uzbeks.

“This is a tribal uprising against Uzbeks. The tribespeople are saying that Uzbeks are no longer required,” South Waziristan administrator Hussainzada Khan told Dawn from Wana.

He said some of the tribes had warned that any one giving shelter to Uzbeks would be considered an enemy of Ahmadzai Wazirs – the dominant tribe in the Wana region.

Hussainzada said Zillikhel, a sub-clan of the Ahmadzai Wazirs, had convened a jirga of Yargulkhel sub-clan on Thursday to put them on notice and decide which side were they on. “It’s now Wazir versus Uzbeks,” he remarked.

Maulavi Nazir, the Taliban chief commander in Wana, has so far refused to halt action against Uzbeks, despite some of his comrades from the Yargulkhel sub-clan siding with Uzbek militants.

Hussainzada said some tribal elders, who until now were too scared to meet authorities because of fear of being targeted by Uzbeks and local militants, were now re-establishing contacts. “Things are taking a positive turn now,” he said.

Sources said the military, garrisoned in the Zari Noor brigade headquarters near Wana, also stepped in and pounded Uzbek positions with artillery in Khaza Ghundai.

Artillery rounds were fired on Uzbek positions at around 12:15pm and 3:30pm on Wednesday, inflicting casualties on the other side.

Army spokesman Maj-Gen Waheed Arshad, however, denied the army had taken part in the fighting but said troops had the right to fire back in retaliation if attacked.

Despite speculations of involvement in the fighting, the government has chosen to take a back-seat because any perceived support to tribespeople can discredit the whole campaign.

The latest round of fighting, the second since March 6, was sparked by the killing of an Arab affiliated with Maulavi Nazir who, like his native tribespeople, held Uzbeks responsible for the spiralling crime in Wana, including kidnappings and targeted killings.