A leading pro-Taliban tribesman has blown himself up after he was surrounded by Pakistani forces near the Afghan border.
Abdullah Mehsud, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, killed himself with a hand grenade in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, said Javed Iqbal Cheema, an interior ministry spokesman.
Three of his accomplices were arrested, Cheema said.
Mehsud had spent 25 months in the US-run "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
In 2004, he became the leader of a group of pro-Taliban, tribal fighters based in South Waziristan.
Led by Mehsud, the fighters kidnapped two Chinese engineers who were working on a hydroelectric dam project in the region in October 2004.
One of the hostages died in a rescue attempt. Mehsud himself escaped and Pakistani forces have been looking for him ever since.
"Intelligence reports pointed out his presence at a house and security forces mounted the raid. He sneaked into Zhob [province] from Waziristan," Cheema said.
Baitullah, Mehsud's brother, is a Taliban commander in Pakistan's tribal regions who has been linked to suicide bombings following this month's army raid on the Red Mosque in Islamabad.