16 September 2004	Thursday	30 Rajab 1425

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BARCELONA, Sept 15: Spanish police arrested 10 Pakistanis suspected of involvement in Islamic extremism during an operation in the northeastern region of Catalonia on Wednesday, judicial sources said.

However, the sources said the arrests were not related to the March 11 attacks in Madrid that left nearly 200 people dead. "An operation was launched against Islamic activists and several people were detained," a spokesman for Catalonia regional police said when contacted by telephone from the capital.

Judicial sources in Madrid said the suspects were arrested "for Islamic terrorism" and said all were of Pakistani origin. Twenty suspects have been arrested in relations to the March 11 attacks. Most are Moroccans and none was a Pakistani national.

A police spokesman said that the Pakistani suspects "could have financed radical organizations outside Spain's borders." Judicial sources said they were sifting through documents to determine "the contours and the methods pertaining to this collaboration."

Judicial sources in Madrid said police had not discovered any weapons or explosives but only documents including false identity papers as well as "books on (Osama Bin Laden)."

Five of the Pakistanis were detained in the northern Barcelona district of Trinitat Vella and five more in the central "Barrio chino" or Chinese district, where there is a concentration of Pakistanis.-AFP

FOREIGN OFFICE: Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesman, Masood Khan, on Wednesday said in Islamabad that Pakistan Embassy in Spain has confirmed the arrest of Pakistanis, adds APP

Talking to PTV he said, Pakistan's Embassy in Spain has made contact with Spanish authorities including their foreign office, local police and courts and tried to find out actual number of arrested Pakistanis and charges levelled against them.