BERLIN, Feb 28: Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat has voiced optimism that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would be caught, in an interview published on Saturday in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Interrogations of Al Qaeda militants had revealed that Osama was most likely hiding in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said, expressing concern that he continued to benefit from "security havens in Afghanistan".

He said the US-led coalition leading operations against remaining Taliban militants and hunting for Osama should "extend their deployment out to the furthest corner of Afghanistan".

Hayat said Karachi had "penetrated the communication network" of Al Qaeda and understood the structure, projects and financing of the organization.

Some 650 suspected terrorists have been arrested in Pakistan since the Sept 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, 500 of them foreigners who were delivered into US custody, according to the minister's estimates.

The Pakistani military arrested two dozen people this week, including some unidentified foreigners in operations in the tribal areas that lie along the border with Afghanistan.-AFP