PESHAWAR, Aug 19: Two Arabs suspected to be Al Qaeda militants were arrested after a car chase in the Hayatabad township here on Thursday.

Sources said that a team of Military Intelligence (MI) and the Crime Investigation Department (CID) signalled a white car, carrying two persons, to stop.

Instead of stopping, the sources said, the driver hurled a hand-grenade at the MI and CID personnel and speeded up the car towards Zahid Market. The security personnel opened fire at the vehicle which entered the premises of Madressah Darul Furqan-ul-Kareem and the Zaid bin Haris mosque.

The sources said that one suspect was injured and taken into custody from the seminary while the other, who had escaped from there, was later arrested from Hayatabad. The man is said to be an Iraqi national.

The injured suspect was identified as Mohammad Fauzi, an Algerian national and said to be in his early 30s. Fauzi suffered a bullet wound in his neck and was treated at the Hayatabad Medical Complex.

The sources told Dawn that the MI team had come from Islamabad on a 'special task' and raided the residence of Al Qaeda suspects on Wednesday night. But there was nobody in the house. The raiding team remained in the locality for the night.

In the morning, they scattered in the area in civvies and kept vigil before they spotted the suspected car. Other sources said that Fauzi had been living in the city for quite some time and he was working for a local NGO as a teacher.