RAWALPINDI: Security was tightened across the country on Monday after intelligence agencies warned that Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud has dispatched 20 foreign militants, mostly Uzbeks, to carry out terror strikes in major cities.

A senior police official said agencies had warned police that the terrorists had left for Bannu on their way to Islamabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi and other major cities. 

He said that adequate protective measures had been taken, security around police installations had been tightened and patrolling had been increased. 

He said vehicles, visitors from other cities and vagrants were being randomly checked in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. 

Police teams, led by SSP Operations Yasin Farooq, were checking hotels and vehicles. He said 36 ‘suspicious’ people had been rounded up and at least 79 motorbikes, 19 cars and two rickshaws had been impounded. 

Police, he said, had also arrested 20 people on charges of various crimes and seized illegal weapons. Three proclaimed offenders had also been arrested, he said.