KARACHI, Oct 12: The hunt for Al Qaeda suspects in the NWFP and Karachi may be halted after the election sweep by the religious parties in Thursday’s polls, religious leaders and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said.

“Taliban and Al Qaeda members are our brothers. Whether it is Osama bin Laden or Mulla Omar, we will not hand over anybody to the US without any proof,” declared Munawwar Hasan, a leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

The MMA clinched 45 seats in the National Assembly, mainly from the North West Frontier Province. The alliance also secured 43 of 99 seats in NWFP’s provincial assembly and 14 in 51-seat Balochistan Assembly.

“The Frontier is very critical because it’s on the border of Afghanistan,” Benazir Bhutto told AFP in an interview from London.

“Handing NWFP to the MMA is giving them (extremists) further control, in my view.”

The MMA campaigned heavily against Pakistan’s role in the US-led war against terror, pledging in particular to expel US forces using Pakistani airbases.

Pakistan has nabbed 442 Al Qaeda suspects since late last year, 380 of them in the northwest border region plus others in Karachi and Faisalabad.

Benazir Bhutto called the MMA a “frightening genie” created by the military to win US support.

“Strategically, the military wants to hold a red rag up to the West and say ‘Look West, you need a military dictatorship, because if there’s not, then pro-Taliban parties are going to come to power’.”

“The MMA is a frightening scenario because when you create genies, genies get out of hand,” Benazir said.

“What we have seen in the MMA is a genie of frightening proportions.”

Munawwar Hasan said the MMA would enforce Islamic system in the country.

“Our government will rule according to the Quran and Sunnah and not with the whims of the US,” he told reporters. “American policies are based on tyranny.”

Benazir Bhutto alleged the MMA had been “granted” NWFP.

“I had an inkling, I even said beforehand, that MMA will be granted NWFP,” she said, rejecting countrywide results as rigged.