PESHAWAR, Jan 5: A joint inquiry team initiated probe into the circumstances which led to the escape and subsequent killing of 18 persons, including some Arab suspects and Pakistani security guards at Arawali, Lower Kurram Agency, on Dec 19, 2001, it is learnt.

Official sources told Dawn that members of the team who arrived in Parachinar, the agency headquarters on Thursday, had started investigations into the mishap. The NWFP Governor, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, had earlier constituted a high-level inquiry committee to look into the matter and ascertain the reasons which led to the incident.

The incident occurred when 48 Arab suspects, out of 156, who were being shifted from sub-jail Parachinar to Kohat for interrogation, tried to snatch guns from security guards and managed to escape.

The sources said that the inquiry team had already visited Arawali, the place of occurrence, Sadda and Parachinar and recorded the statements of jail officials and authorities concerned. Meanwhile, the government has made subaidar major Kurram Levy, Mohammad Qaseer Khan, honorary captain for his commendable performance during the Arawali incident.

The subaidar major had sustained serious bullet injuries when Arab suspects ambushed a search party of Kurram Levy near Narrai village, Arawali. His two subordinates and two Arab suspects were killed in the firing incident. Mohammad Qaseer is still under treatment at Agency Headquarter Hospital, Parachinar.

Our Kalaya correspondent adds: The political administration of Orakzai Agency on Saturday shifted nine suspect members of Al Qaeda network to a prison in Dera Ismail Khan for interrogation.

All the nine suspects, who are Tajik Afghans, had been held at a checkpoint in the Zera area of lower tehsil of Orakzai Agency on Friday night by levies personnel, sources said, adding that soon after their arrest, they were shifted to the Babar Mela sub- jail for investigations.

The names of the Tajiks hailing from northern Afghanistan are Haji Jan Mohammad, Noor Din, Mohammad Suleman, Mohammadi, Mohammad Yaqub, Mohammad Tariq, Abdul Jalil, Mohibullah and Abdul Karim.

They have apparently entered the Pakistani tribal belt from the Tora Bora region in eastern Afghanistan, fleeing US bombardment on Taleban and Al Qaeda positions.

The law enforcement agencies of Pakistan have heightened security in the tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan after the Al Qaeda men were flushed out from their last hideout in the Tora Bora mountainous region.

The political authorities had adopted tight security measures at the time of shifting the suspect Al Qaeda members to the Dera Ismail Khan jail.

They were taken in two passenger coaches escorted by the vehicles of Orakzai Agency levies.

Some 48 Al Qaeda men had escaped custody after overpowering their escorting guards in the tribal territory when they were being shifted from the Kurram tribal agency to a prison in Kohat in December last.

Five of the escaped men are still unaccounted for as the law enforcement agencies re-arrested most them, while some were killed in pitched battles. The law enforcement agencies had also suffered a few casualties in these encounters.

The search is continuing for the escaped Al Qaeda men and other suspects and those who might cross over to Pakistan illegally through its western borders.

EIGHT HELD: The political administration of Kurram Agency arrested eight persons including four Iraqi Kurds and four Afghans at F.R. Kurram Agency on Friday, our correspondent in Parachinar adds.