ISLAMABAD, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces killed five al Qaeda-linked militants and captured 20 in an operation near the Afghan border on Tuesday after insurgents abducted four troops in the area, the military said.

Pakistani forces pounded suspected militants positions in the restive South Waziristan tribal region with artillery.

"Security forces apprehended 20 miscreants and killed five others," a military spokesman said.

He did not say whether forces had secured the release of four troops kidnapped earlier on Tuesday from a check point near one of the main camps in a region regarded as a hotbed of support for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Many militants fled to Pakistan's lawless tribal lands after U.S.-backed troops ousted the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001. They have been conducting raids into Afghanistan and Pakistan from their mountain strongholds.

Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes and suicide bomb attacks in recent months, much of the violence in the restive North West Frontier Province.

Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb suicide attack near Islamabad late last week.

The government blames an al-Qaeda linked Pakistani militant for the killing. His spokesman has denied it. (Reporting by Kamran Haider, Editing by Simon Gardner)

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