Wana, Pakistan ? Pakistan forces pounded tribal areas Saturday with heavy artillery and Cobra helicopters for the third day in a row, but hopes faded that Osama bin Laden or his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri might be cornered.

Instead, the “high-value target” believed to be at the center of the mountain stronghold under assault may be only a Chechen commander or a local criminal, according to Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, Frontier Corps commander of Peshawar. He said three people were killed in fighting Saturday and 40 arrested, raising total arrests to 100 since the Pakistani military operation began Monday. About 25 people of the 40 arrested Saturday were foreign fighters.

“Our people are interrogating them to determine who these terrorists are,” said Brig. Mahmood Shah, the chief of security for tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan. “Some of them are foreigners.”

About 2,500 soldiers were fighting the militants and the rest conducting searches, Hussain said. Pakistani officials said a dozen American personnel were helping with technical intelligence and surveillance.

“I would not rule out any possibility, but with this level of resistance, even after 48 hours (of bombardment), I believe the high-value target is still there,” Hussain told about 40 journalists.

The Pakistani army has intercepted some radio conversations of militants inside the encampment — mostly in the Chechen and Uzbek languages and some in Arabic.

One radio intercept in Uzbek or Chechen said a man wounded when he tried unsuccessfully to flee the area in a vehicle on the first day of the operation would need “four men to carry him and 10 or 11 people to protect him,” Hussain revealed.

That raised suspicion the man was important and “most likely Chechen or Uzbek, as the intercepts were in those languages,” he said.

Al-Zawahri is Egyptian, and would be expected to have mostly Arabic-speaking protectors. But Hussain said it was possible a figure like al-Zawahri would be guarded by fighters of different nationalities. He also said the protected man could have been a top local tribesman.

Pakistani soldiers guard a prisoner in the back of a military truck at a base near Wana, Pakistan, where forces have been battling al-Qaida and Taliban forces. Pakistan's military had arrested more than 100 suspects in a five-day assault on militants holed up in mud fortresses along the border where al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al Zawahri was believed trapped, a commander said Saturday.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh said the military operation should conclude Monday night.

The ongoing battles in South Waziristan have given free reign to cynics here.

“The U.S. has the technology to find an insect on the head of a person half way around the world, and they can’t find Osama bin Laden?” said Malik Darya Khan, 38, a merchant. “Someone has already arrested him and are now using this attack in South Waziristan for President Bush’s election.”