The nocturnal raid this week by Pakistani troops – with FBI assistance – on an Al Qaeda hide-out was the first cooperative effort of this kind on Pakistani soil.

According to sources in Islamabad, five FBI agents worked alongside nearly 50 Pakistani Army soldiers during the operation near the Afghan border. But the US agents were not involved in the two-hour firefight.

This marks the first major combat operation inside Pakistan's autonomous tribal areas, and underscores the shift in the war on Al Qaeda from Afghanistan to Pakistan. In May, US special forces and Pakistani troops searched a madrassah in Northern Waziristan.

This latest ongoing operation is also an acknowledgment by Islamabad, say analysts, that Osama bin Laden's followers are regrouping in its territory – and that President Pervez Musharraf's government is willing to cooperate fully with US efforts.

"The incident in South Waziristan is a grim reminder that Al Qaeda is very much present in Pakistan and that it is able to find shelters in the tribal areas," says Afzal Niazi, a political analyst in Islamabad. "Flushing out the fugitives from their hideouts in a tribal region carries risk of trouble with locals, but it is a risk the authorities have got to take."

As such, it's unlikely to be the last Pakistani operation in the tribal areas. US military officials estimate that up to 1,000 Al Qaeda fighters have fled into the region from Afghanistan.

The clash Tuesday began around midnight in South Waziristan, a mountainous province inhabited by fiercely independent and deeply religious ethnic Pashtun tribesmen to whom bin Laden and the Taliban are considered heroes of Islam.

According to information gathered from Pakistani security and intelligence sources, the operation involved a strike force of three Pakistani units with 16 soldiers in each. It was initiated after the FBI intercepted communications in mid-May indicating the presence of Al Qaeda members in the area.

For Pakistani troops, the attack quickly turned chaotic. The fortress-like Al Qaeda compound is located in Azam Warsak, in a densely populated residential area some 20 miles from the Afghan border. For that reason, Pakistani military sources say the use of tanks or jet bombers would have produced too many civilian casualties.

As the troops entered the gates of the compound, they were hit by machine-gun fire and grenades. For two hours the battle raged, leaving 10 Pakistani soldiers dead, including a major and a captain.

When the fight was over, Pakistani troops found two dead Al Qaeda fighters lying beside their machine guns. They were identified as Chechens from the papers recovered from their pockets.

There was no trace of some 40 others who were believed to have been hiding in the house along with some women and children.

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