Pakistani agents arrest seven al-Qaida suspects

Pakistani agents staged a pre-dawn raid at an apartment complex today and arrested seven suspected foreign members of the al-Qaida terror group who had been living there for two months.

There was no word whether the suspects were engaged in an active plot. But officers seized five hand grenades, four handguns, ammunition and maps of Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, an intelligence officer said.

The arrested suspects included two Egyptian and three Afghan men, and two Arab women.

“Our information is these are al-Qaida people,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. “One is a recognised man.”

No names were disclosed, and there were no details about what rank the suspects held in the international terror organisation.

The arrests in this teeming port city of 14 million people coincide with stepped-up military operations to hunt al-Qaida fugitives in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas along the rugged border with Afghanistan, a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Tribal elders have turned in more than 40 men to Pakistani authorities in the past week, though it is unknown whether any are al-Qaida members. They are believed to be local tribesmen who may have helped shelter the fugitives and fighters of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime.

Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are believed to use the tribal lands, where the Pakistan government exercises little control, to stage attack US troops in Afghanistan, slipping back across the border to relative safety.

In today’s raid in Karachi, about 50 to 60 armed officers – some in police and paramilitary ranger uniforms and others in civilian clothes – surrounded the Cassim Complex, a block of 160 residential apartments in the middle-class Gulistan-e-Jauhar neighbourhood.

They moved in at 3am and broke down the door of the fourth-floor apartment and brought out the suspects in handcuffs at the end of the 30-minute operation. There was no gunfire.

Residents said three children were also picked up – an infant carried by one of the female suspects, and two boys aged four and five. It was not clear where the arrested people were taken.

Residents said a youth called Jani, who lived on the third floor, was also detained and later released. There was no answer at his home later.

Sindh provincial police chief Syed Kamal Shah confirmed there had been some arrests early Sunday, but did not know how many . City police chief Asad Ashraf Malik said he did not know about the arrests.

The arrests come two days after US General John Abizaid, commander of Central Command, which runs the American military campaign in Afghanistan, held talks on fighting terrorism with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Yesterday, Musharraf committed Pakistan anew to fighting extremism in a speech to Parliament. He survived two assassination attempts last month blamed on Islamic militants.

Pakistan withdrew its backing of the Taliban after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States and has arrested more than 500 al-Qaida suspects in the past two years. Many have been handed over to US authorities.

They include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the No. 3 leader of the organisation, and Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah, both alleged organisers of the September 11 attacks.

All three were arrested in Pakistani cities.