LAHORE/GUJRAT, July 25: Security forces on Sunday arrested 13 suspected terrorists, including four foreigners and some members of their families, after a 16-hour stand off in a house in Gujrat.

However, neither the government of Punjab nor Punjab police would confirm if the arrested men belonged to Al Qaeda terror network. They also would not disclose the nationalities of the arrested foreigners.

"Yes, (I can only confirm that) they are terrorists," Punjab Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja told Dawn. He said that it was premature to talk about their affiliation with any particular organization, like Al Qaeda.

Referring to their nationalities, he said: "At this moment I can only say that they are foreigners. Let (security) agencies investigate (about) their activities in Pakistan besides (probing about) whose support they had here."

The operation, he said, was part of the government's anti- terror campaign. Punjab's Inspector-General Police Saadatullah Khan said that some "12 or so" suspected terrorists had been arrested in Gujrat. He also declined to say anything at this stage about their association with any terror group or their nationalities.

During the stand off, police commandos surrounded the house in Mohallah Islam Nagar after officials of an intelligence agency confirmed with the help of a foreigner in their custody, that there were foreigners in the house.

The commandos ordered them to surrender, but instead of giving themselves up, the inmates opened fire on security forces. The commandos returned fire. Local people said that firing from both sides continued intermittently. Police evacuated the adjoining houses fearing a large-scale attack from the terrorists.

Gujranwala police DIG Altaf Qamar and Gujrat DPO Raja Munawar supervised the operation. The siege continued for the entire Saturday night and until 9am on Sunday when police commandos stormed the house after breaking the walls and the roof of one of the rooms of the house.

A portion of the house caught fire during the operation. A policeman, Mohammad Arshad, was injured. The siege ended after the commandos used tear-gas. At that time, some foreign nationals in the house appeared in a window and expressed their willingness to surrender if the police stopped firing tear-gas shells.

Then they walked out of the house one by one. Police teams found two Kalashnikov rifles, two pistols, two hand-grenades, two laptop computers and other accessories and a large number of bullets in the house. They also found atlases, maps of some countries and some literature in Arabic.

A packet containing a powder-like chemical was also seized. According to initial investigation, foreigners had rented the house owned by a bank manager, Chaudhry Aslam, about one and a half month ago. Later, police detained a real estate dealer, Ejaz Warraich, who had brokered the property deal.

The police said efforts were being made to arrest the owner of the house, who belongs to Mirpur in the Azad Kashmir. The arrested men had reportedly asked the people to contact them for sending them abroad.

Sources identified the arrested persons as Abdullah of Okara, his wife Fatima, a Saudi national; and their three children, Jamil (4), Asya (2) and infant, Abdullah; Feroze, South African; Kamran Javed from Balochistan, his wife Habiba and their 10-day-old son; Zubair Ismael, South African, and his Pakistani wife Asya, and a 13-year-old Saudi boy, Talha.

Abdullah, Feroze, Kamran, Zubair and Talha are said to have received training in Afghanistan and Iran and are believed to have been involved in terrorist activities in Pakistan over the past three years.