KARACHI, Sept 28: Security forces have detained more than a dozen suspected militants, including some linked to Al Qaeda, after killing the country's most wanted man, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, on Sunday, sources said on Tuesday.

Most of those arrested were caught in Sindh but arrests also took place in Quetta, Peshawar, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi. "Raids are continuing and we expect more arrests," said intelligence sources.

Arrests were made in Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh, said provincial government spokesman Salahuddin Haider. A witness described how Amjad Farooqi refused to be taken alive after being surrounded at a house in Nawabshah.

Security personnel ordered him to remove his shirt as he stood at the gate to the house, recounted neighbour Wakil Rajpar. Amjad Farooqi refused and stepped toward them reciting Quranic verses, whereupon he was shot dead, Mr Rajpar told Reuters.

The security forces gathered enough information from material at the scene, two men captured in the shootout and earlier telephone taps to launch a round of arrests, the sources said.

Amjad Farooqi's accomplices held in Nawabshah - Abdul Rehman and Yaqoob Farooqi - had provided crucial leads, they said. Investigators were trying to extract information from computers, discs, documents and maps seized from the house where Amjad Farooqi had been hiding for a couple of months, they said.

The detainees include a suspect in the May 2002 suicide car bomb attack which killed 11 French naval technicians outside the Sheraton hotel here, Mr Haider told AFP. The two accomplices arrested after the shootout have told interrogators that Amjad Farooqi also plotted the July 30 suicide bomb attack against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. -Reuters/AFP