PESHAWAR, Nov 16: Security guards manning the tribal territory bordering Afghanistan have seized six foreign fighters of Osama bin Laden while attempting to sneak into Pakistan, officials said.

Sources told Dawn that four Albanians and two Turks with over a dozen Pakistani militants of Jaish-i-Muhammad were trying to sneak through Ghaki Pass in Bajaur when they were arrested on Thursday night.

Ghaki Pass is one of the many unfrequented routes in the tribal area straddling along the border with Afghanistan and is frequently used by people to cross the border illegally.

In recent weeks, thousands of militants of Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi used this route to enter Afghanistan and take part in the Taliban’s Jihad against the US-led coalition.

Officials said that the detainees would be handed over to the Joint Interrogation Team comprising personnel from civilian as well as military intelligence agencies in Peshawar. The foreigners had links with Osama, they added.

The arrest confirms apprehensions that Osama’s men could slip into Pakistan’s tribal areas to escape a hunt by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.

There are reports from Khost and Jalalabad that a good number of the Arab Afghans, as they are called, have left their families to the mercy and protection of local tribes and gone to the mountains to fight coalition forces.

The BBC quoting Iranian radio, said that Osama had crossed over into Pakistan and taken refuge in the inaccessible and remote Terah Valley in the Khyber Agency. The Iranian radio however, did not reveal the source of information.

Officials, however, deny this and rule out the possibility as hogwash.

SURVEILLANCE: NWFP Governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah met Special US envoy James Dobbins in Peshawar and enumerated the steps taken by Pakistan to ensure border security in the backdrop of the emerging situation in Afghanistan.