NEW YORK, Nov 29: Only a handful of the more than 1,200 people detained by the US law enforcement officials appear to have Al Qaeda terrorist connections, US officials told the New York Times.

In a report the Times said that the approximately 600 people still in custody are mostly being held on immigration violations or unrelated crimes from child pornography to credit card fraud that agents came across while pursuing the investigation.

A third of those detained are from Pakistan and apparently none has been held on terrorism-related charges, say Pakistani civil rights leaders in New York.

On Tuesday, attorney-general John Ashcroft said the campaign of detentions was intended to remove “suspected terrorists who violate the law from our streets.”

But a review of documents and interviews with law enforcement officials and defence lawyers show that the detentions have yielded a collection of fairly routine immigration violators, speeders and petty criminals who got caught up in an aggressive dragnet prompted by fears of further terrorist attacks.