ISLAMABAD, March 30: Security officials here say a tipoff from the CIA led to the arrest of an Indonesian Al Qaeda-linked terror suspect in Pakistan. The arrest of Umar Patek is seen as a significant blow to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terror network behind a string of bloody bombings in the region.

Two Pakistani officials said on Wednesday the CIA had tipped off their intelligence agencies that Patek may be travelling to their country, but added the operation to arrest him was solely Pakistani.

They did not say when or where Patek was arrested, but according to the Philippines authorities, who have also been hunting him, he was seized on Jan 25 along with a Pakistani associate believed to have been giving him shelter.

Patek has a $1 million American price on his head. Indonesia’s police detective, Lt-Gen Ito Sumardi, said he only received a report of Patek’s arrest a few days ago and was sending teams to Islamabad to identify him. He said he was concerned over how Patek was able to travel across international borders.

Patek, 40, spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s with about 300 other Southeast Asian militants and together they formed the nucleus of Jemaah Islamiyah.

Since 2002, however, Indonesia has rounded up or killed many top militants and Patek was one of the most senior members of the group still on the run.

A Pakistani intelligence official said Patek was currently being questioned. “It is our policy to send them back to their country of origin. We will eventually give him to the Indonesians,” he said.

The CIA, which cooperates closely with Pakistan intelligence agencies, would presumably like to have access to Patek, but the Pakistani officer said this would happen only with the consent of Indonesia, which too has worked closely with the US in the past.

One of Patek’s suspected co-conspirators in the nightclub bombing, known as Hambali, was arrested in Thailand in 2003 and sent to the United States, where he is now being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

His detention was for a long time a source of tension between Washington and Jakarta, which wanted him tried in Indonesia.

The country has arrested, tried and convicted hundreds of militants in a widely praised crackdown.

Asked about the arrest of Patek, US Ambassador to Indonesia Scot A. Marciel said: “As far as I know this is not a US government operation. We did not arrest him, we do not have custody of this guy, so I’m not sure there is a US government role in this.”—Agencies