PESHAWAR, Dec 8: The military says that rapidly falling communication intercepts from foreign militants in South Waziristan indicates they are leaving the area.

"Intercepts in one sector have dried up. That doesn't mean militants have gone quiet. We are still picking up chatter in other areas. They are still out there. But the intercepts are getting fewer and fewer. This is an indication they are on the move and relocating," a senior military officer said at a briefing.

Sources said that militants' communication intercepted by the army's experts revealed that they were finding it difficult to stay on in the face of the military operation and were now looking to either move across the border or melt into Pakistani cities.

The chatter began drying up around mid-November in one region that had been quite active until recently and the military eavesdroppers had to move their equipment accordingly to pick up conversation as militants moved from one region to the other, the sources said.

It became clear in the first week of November that the migration of militants had begun from a part of the Mehsud-dominated region. The intercepts were mostly in the Uzbek language, interspersed occasionally with Pushto and Arabic.

This and field intelligence reports have led military analysts to believe that the group of foreign militants was dominated by Uzbeks and included a few Uighur Chinese Muslims and Tajiks who formed the Islamic Movement of Turkistan (formerly Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan), and that the group was moving out of the Jandola Mehsud region. But there is also a view that some foreign militants are creeping back into their old hideouts in the troubled region. "They keep changing their positions which make it difficult to keep track of them," said one security official.

But military sources acknowledged that militants were using 'very intelligent and high-level' code system which, more often than not, made it difficult for them to decipher their communication.

This correspondent was able to listen to some of the 150 intercepts of foreign militants translated from Uzbek and Arabic languages into Urdu which, going by their content, gave out very little of intelligence value.

Indeed, some of the intercepts were so heavily coded that it was difficult to derive any sense out of them. In one such intercept, Qari Tahir Yaldesh, the leader of the Uzbek militants, appeared to have been on the wireless with one of his people, who affectionately call him the 'big leader' or 'Aala Hazrat'.

The military sources, however, said that Qari Tahir had been intercepted to have given execution orders. "He is ruthless," said one source. "He is heard discussing execution orders and has eliminated some of those very close to him," the source added.

In other instances, names of one Daniyal (said to be a Chechen commander), Zahid and Ibrar (Uzbek militants) continue to crop up. At one point, the caller refers to one Nikolai (a Russian) and at another point refers to one Abu Kashaf and Dr Bela.

In their communication, the militants continue to refer to some 'place of transaction' without being specific. They refer to caves and tunnels and order opening of fire, apparently on approaching security forces.

In one intercept, they refer to watermelons and fish being sold everywhere at (Rs)250. "I have seen the boxes and packets myself," one of the militants is heard saying. "By the grace of Allah, six lemons will explode," says another militant in a different communication intercept.

Significantly, in some intercepts, the foreign militants express their weariness about the attitude of local tribesmen. "The helpers (madadgars) are not helping. They are making excuses," laments a militant.

The intercepts also make references to children and putting them to use. The military sources draw a connection between those references and the recent arrest of Tajik nationals, 14-year-old Khalid and 12-year-old Hussain, from South Waziristan.

Khalid has told interrogators that he, along with four others, was kidnapped by militants from a village near Dushanbe. These sources said militants were living luxurious lives and appeared to be well-funded. The military has tracked one such funding source to Chaman in Balochistan.