KOHAT, June 29: At least seven Al Qaeda suspects were arrested by the army troops in an operation near the Afghanistan border in the Darmilan area of South Waziristan Agency, 435kms south-east of here and shifted to the military headquarters in Wana on Friday night, political authorities told Dawn on telephone on Saturday.

These men were first brought to the army’s command center in Wana on Friday night and later handed over to the Joint Interrogation Team on Saturday for further investigation.

In a separate raid, three tribesmen belonging to Dotani tribe of the South Waziristan Agency, allegedly having links with Al Qaeda, were also rounded up at the Tanai checkpoint on the Durand Line on Saturday. They were identified as Mohammad Khan, son of Haji Kakay, Noor Mohammad, son of Khanay, and Bakht Amir son of Adam Khan.

Another suspect, Abdul Ghaffar, an Uzbek from Qundooz area of Afghanistan, arrested from the border town of Gulkash, was being quizzed by the JIT, comprising ISI, MI and IB officials, in the office of the assistant political agent, Syed Anwar Ali Shah, at the time of filing of this report late on Saturday night.

According to preliminary reports, the seven Al Qaeda suspects hailing from different cities of Pakistan told the JIT that they were the members of a Tableeghee Jamaat which was on a one-year visit of the area since October last year. However, their claim could not be confirmed.

There names and native cities are Manzoor Ahmed (Khanewal), Anwar Ali (Tharparkar), Ahmed Nawaz (Federal B area, Karachi), Hurmat Khan and Abdul Majeed (Lahore), Gul Bahar (Dera Ghazi Khan) and Liaquat Hussain of Muzafargarh.

A member of the JIT also disclosed that a Turkmen, Mohammad Yahya, arrested in Tuesday’s encounter which resulted in the death of 10 armymen and two Al Qaeda members, had been put under quarter guard and would be tried by a military court once the investigations of the case were completed.

AFP adds: Pakistani troops have narrowed the hunt for around 40 Al Qaeda fugitives involved in a deadly encounter with Pakistan forces to a small pocket in mountains along its western border, local tribal leaders said on Saturday.

Security forces suspect the fleeing Al Qaeda fighters may be on their way to the tribal belt town of Gul Kach, at the southern edge of South Waziristan district, some 25kms from the rugged border with Afghanistan, tribal elders said.

The forces are concentrating on Gul Kach, which lies on a route to Balochistan from Azam Warsak, where the militants killed 10 Pakistani troops in a gun-battle at their hideout on Tuesday night.

A circuitous mountainous track winds through Gul Kach to Zhob district in Baluchistan, which neighbours the former Taliban’s stronghold province of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Army troops and helicopters were heading towards the town, and a US aircraft was also seen flying overhead, tribesmen in South Waziristan told reporters.

They said the white craft may be a surveillance plane guiding the ground forces.

Some 600 Pakistani ground troops backed by helicopters have been scouring the remote mountain passes in a massive manhunt for the Al Qaeda escapees.