(Adds official's comment)

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD, June 20 (Reuters) - Most of the 32 militants killed in an apparent missile attack in a Pakistani tribal region were foreigners, mainly Uzbeks, a senior Pakistani government official said on Wednesday.

Intelligence officials said missiles, possibly fired by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, hit a suspected militant training base on Tuesday in a hamlet in the mountainous North Waziristan tribal region, killing 32 militants.

"All of the dead are foreigners and most of them were Uzbeks," said a senior official working in the region, who declined to be identified.

No senior member of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network or the Taliban was killed, he said. "That's for sure, no high-value target was there."

Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said there had been an explosion in the area but denied missiles caused it and said the army had not carried out any operations there.

He suggested the explosion occurred while militants were making a bomb.

Such explanations have been offered in the past when U.S. forces in Afghanistan fired missiles at targets on Pakistani territory.

Pakistan's anti-terrorism alliance with the United States is unpopular with many Pakistanis, and the government is sensitive to any report of foreign forces carrying out operations in its territory or airspace.

Many members and supporters of al Qaeda, including some Uzbeks and other foreigners, as well as Taliban members fled to North Waziristan after U.S.-led forces overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001.

Afghan and U.S. military officials say the militants direct their intensified insurgency in Afghanistan, and plot violence elsewhere, from sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border, including in North Waziristan.

"A LIE"

The government authority responsible for the tribal lands on the Afghan border said the explosions had hit a training base for foreign militants, but it too denied missiles had been fired.

A resident of the area said three missiles had been fired but he denied the dead were militants. He said 34 religious students had been killed.

"It's a lie, there were no militants," said Mohammad Ameer, a caretaker at the Zia-ul-Islam Islamic seminary, about 10 km (six miles) from the site of the blasts.

"They were students at lessons in a tent when three missiles hit them. Soon after, two drone aircraft hovered over the area for some time," he said.

In Islamabad, opposition members walked out of parliament in a protest against the attack.

Last September, the government struck a peace deal in North Waziristan which authorities said was aimed at giving power to tribal leaders and isolating the militants.

Critics said the pact had created a sanctuary for militants but, nevertheless, the level of violence in North Waziristan has fallen sharply since then.

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